Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl
by Doghead Thirteen
Summary: Sequel to Headmaster’s Socks. As Harry and Hermione enter the next stage of the relationship, it's time for them to enter their second term at the Collegium. But there's something rotten in the bowels of Hogwarts, and Ginny Weasely is in big trouble...
1. Prologue

CAUTION! To understand this work of fanfiction, you will need to have read Top Dog: Enter the Fnords books 1 (Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks) and Top Dog Intermissions 1 (Harry Johnson and the Lunatic Scientist.)

Otherwise it will not make much of any sense.

Done that? Good; welcome back for another instalment of Top Dog.

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**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_Say your prayers little one_

_Don't forget my son_

_To include everyone_

_Tuck you in, warm within_

_Keep you free from sin_

_Till the sandman he comes_

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**Heroes aren't **_**born that way**_**.**

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August 27th, 1997. Harry Johnson, accompanied by the Weasely family and almost the entire CTMA, had just come in to Daigon Alley from the King's Cross entrance.

He glared at the eternal sick orange night, streaked by endless greasy rain, of that pit for a moment, then shook his head and said, "I hate this town."

"Why's that?" Ron Weasely asked, puzzled.

"Take a look around yourself." Harry told him. "What's to like about this shit-hole? Give me An Sleamhnaich or Jurai City or R'harash'gai't'rath any day, at least they occasionally get nice weather. Coronet City, now that's what I call a town. Auckland, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, New Tasmania – they're all REAL towns. You call this a town? Who killed it?"

Arthur Weasely made the wise decision of keeping his mouth shut as he started handing out umbrellas. His wife, on the other hand, didn't.

"Well, almost all the shops we need to stop past are in the covered arcade."

"Small mercies." Harry said with a snort, idly lighting up a cigarette. "The weather? Shitty. The structure? Shitty. The people? Shitty. The products on sale? Shitty. Even the scum and villainy are shitty. Yeah, I hate this town."

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_Sleep with one eye open_

_Gripping your pillow tight_

_Exit: Light_

_Enter: Night_

_Take my hand_

_We're off to never-never land_

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**They don't just randomly **_**occur**_**.**

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"Hey, what's going on over there?" Ron suddenly asked. The group were currently making their way through the covered arcade towards the local branch of the book retailers known by the name of Flourish & Blotts. Said establishment was mobbed out; a mainly-feminine (or camp) horde was swarming around the doorway and half-blocking the walkway, with some kind of commotion at the centre of the mob.

"Pass." Harry said.

"It appears to be some form of book-signing or other such celebrity appearance." S'tarak'hai remarked; his immense height allowed him to see clear over the crowd.

"Gimme your view." Harry said. His eyes went unfocused for a moment, then he nodded. "Gilderoy Lockhart. Author – pretty good at spinning a yarn from what I've heard. Adventure stories, true tales of out-there shit he's got up to, you know the drill. Can't say he looks it; no scars and no thousand-yard-stare. Impressive how well he's held it together; I guess he's got some pals keeping an eye on things from the fact he's only packing one compact pistol."

"Interesting." S'tarak'hai muttered, frowning and swiftly scanning his head around. "If so, their operational security is remarkable."

"Of course it is. Haven't you heard of all the amazing things he's done?" Molly Weasely asked; apparently, she was a fan.

S'tarak'hai gave her a faintly amused sideon look.

"My usual reading material primarily consists of equipment specifications, intelligence reports, and pornography." He said with a hooded-eyed grin.

"Guy's certainly got a fair old rep, though nobody on the circuit seems to know him directly – it's all second-hand knowledge if you get my drift." Harry said with another nod, then he and S'tarak'hai began bulldozing a path to the door by the simple expedient of looming and glowering ominously at people, and where necessary breathing threateningly down necks; in that manner, they quickly got the group into the bookshop.

There was a large display of Gilderoy Lockhart books beside the door, and as soon as Harry saw them he stopped dead in his tracks and grabbed a specific book. He stared blankly at the cover with a haunted look in his eyes, then flipped the book over and read the description on the back with his expression getting increasingly worried.

"Are you okay, Harry?" Hermione asked.

Harry handed her the book; she had a quick scan over the back cover blurb.

It blared about Lockhart's experiences in 'The Hell called Garg's Landing'.

"You were there, weren't you?" she checked, vaguely remembering something from the Sorting Feast the previous year, and a few comments Harry had made from time to time before he'd then quickly changed the subject; it didn't exactly take a degree in psychology to realise he really didn't like talking about it.

Harry nodded stiffly.

"Yeah." he said, still sounding worried.

"Harry, why are you so freaked out?" she asked.

Harry sharply looked round at her, and she suddenly realised he was frightened.

"Hermione," he said, "I know _every_ man, woman and child who got out of Garg's Landing alive, and I know them _by name_. I know their faces, every last one of them. I know their dates of birth, their blood types, their exact genetic make-up, where they live, their favourite fucking colour – I know _everything_ about them. _And not one of them was named Gilderoy Lockhart_."

"Are you sure you haven't forgotten about him, Harry dear?" Molly Weasely asked.

Harry gave her a sharp look much like the one he'd given Hermione. "I'm an Arcadian-cross weredragon; I'm cursed with a perfect memory. _I vaguely remember being born_. I **never** forget _anything_, especially if I _want_ to forget it. And… I don't remember him on the list of survivors. Shit… I gotta check this out; I've still got that list in my truck."

"Uh-oh, Ravening Bugblatter Beast of Traal to stern." Tara suddenly remarked, jerking a thumb at a Rolls-Royce that had just pulled up across the road, visible through the gradually-closing gap in the crowd Harry and S'tarak'hai had bulldozed.

Hermione had a peer, and sighed quietly to herself as she saw the trio of blondes stepping out of the limousine; that was Draco Malfoy, and from the familial resemblance the older man was Draco's father, which meant the woman was probably the blonde brat's mother.

"Oh boy, the Malfoys… not what I needed." She said.

"Great, today just gets fucking better." Harry muttered. "Hopefully we can avoid the bastards."

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_Something's wrong, shut the light_

_Heavy thoughts tonight_

_And they aren't of Snow White_

_Dreams of war, dreams of liars_

_Dreams of dragon's fire_

_And of things that will bite_

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**There are no **_**genes**_** to choose them.**

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The Weasely-CTMA group came face-to-face with the Malfoys right when they were leaving the bookshop on their way to a nearby Belgian café for lunch. Arthur Weasely and Lucius Malfoy glared at each other, but the tension got interrupted by Ben:

"Gudday Lucy mate, how's the bollock?"

Lucius went even paler.

"Bastard." He stated. Ben flipped him the bird and went sauntering away towards the café loudly singing 'Hitler has only got one ball' at the top of his lungs.

"Huh. You're one pathetic piece of shit, aren't you, _Laver_?" Harry remarked, causing the blonde Sith to spin back round.

"Mr _**Johnson**_." Lucius snarled. "Hogwarts' resident _celebrity_, the self-styled Darth Venger, or should I say Slade Morley… disgusting."

"That's _Lord_ Venger to the likes of you, _scum_." Harry stated. "I'd have some respect for you if you could at least dominate your wife without using cheap toys." The blonde man went as white as a sheet as Harry turned his back; Harry made the motion an unmistakable insult.

It said, 'You're so pathetic I'm going to give you a long look at my spine at short range because I know even when I've given you that advantage _you can't touch me_.'

"Son. Of. A. **Bitch**! You're going to get yours, Venger! You hear me?" Lucius roared, going even paler than normal.

"Weakling." Harry fired over his shoulder.

Lucius turned and stormed off towards the back of the shop; there was a yelp as he knocked Ginny Weasely flat on her backside, causing her cauldron to ditch it's contents (her new textbooks) all over the pavement.

The blonde man glared at the frightened girl for a long moment.

"Clumsy." He remarked as she started scrabbling to load all her books into her cauldron again; he picked up one of the Lockhart volumes, contemplated it for a long moment, turned the cover so Harry could see it, cocked an eyebrow, then contemptuously ditched the book into the cauldron.

"You should learn to watch your step, little girl." He stated, and then he was gone, closely followed by his wife and son; Draco shot Ginny an unreadable look as he passed, and Narcissa surprised everyone by giving the girl a brief sympathetic expression.

"What a dick." Hermione remarked, helping a shook-up Ginny recover the rest of her possessions. "Well, I guess now we know where Draco gets it from… Hey, Harry, how come people keep calling you 'Slade Morley'?"

Harry snorted. "Oh, that was an old identity of mine I used for tomb raiding, mostly in Africa, though I also used it for various jobs I did for the Frououshtequoo and a couple Clanlords. I had a couple of run-ins with Lucy-boy, but I hadn't realised what a pathetic piece of shit he is up until…" He shook his head. "Funny the way we all have our illusions, isn't it?"

It was fairly obvious who'd won that little posturing match, despite Ginny getting run down.

"I guess you hired Bill for a job, right?" Hermione checked, receiving a terse nod.

"Yeah, Slade Morley's final ride… I'll tell you about it some other time – careless words cost lives, don't you know."

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_Sleep with one eye open_

_Gripping your pillow tight_

_Exit: Light_

_Enter: Night_

_Take my hand_

_We're off to never-never land_

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**They don't come from **_**training**_**.**

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Harry arrived in his road-train, closely followed by Hermione, who was worried about him. He'd been in a weird mood ever since he saw the stand of Lockhart books; his frame of mind had got fouler as the day went on, to the point that, by the time they left the Alley he'd barely had a good word for anyone, and even went as far as to snarl at Michelle.

She seated herself as he stalked over to a bookshelf full of ring-binders and snatched a specific one; a decidedly dog-eared dossier in a charcoal grey sleeve which he proceeded to carefully go through.

"Something is seriously wrong here." He finally said, snapping it shut and flinging it on an available sofa.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"The only L-surname in the list of survivors is Tortwiggly Levvet, and she's a black-furred female Frognorfian who lost both legs." Harry stated. "The only blonde Sahal'venics are Daniel Newcomb, Terry Bogard, Deunan Knute, and Kenjiro Batou. Out of the lot of 'em, Batou was injured so badly he had to have a full conversion; he's working for the Japanese government these days. Terry's someplace in Asia training in the martial arts, last I heard he was hanging out with Ryu Toriyama and the Musk. Deunan's with An Sleamhnaich Police Department SWAT. Duke's with the US Marine Core. There's another twenty Sahal'venics on the list who got smashed up to the point of full conversion, but from his magnetic anomaly signature that Lockhart character's fully meat."

"What are you talking about?"

"Garg's Landing." Harry said. "I can't find Lockhart or anyone who looks like him on the list of survivors."

"What's this leading up to, Harry?"

Harry set the dossier down and glared out the window.

"I'm not sure, yet." He said. "I can think of three options. First off, maybe he's had some serious biosculpting and changed his name – Gilderoy Lockhart, huh? Who the fuck does he think he is, Casanunda? Second off, maybe he got out of there before the Kenti showed up, in which case he was Twelfth Section and I owe the son-of-a-bitch a hell of a kicking; those fucks took off with nine tenths of the armoury, all the support weapons we had, and left us to die; it's thanks to them that so many poor bastards got blasted to bloody rags without us being able to lay down any counter-battery fire, and if I _ever_ catch up with _any_ of them I am going to bleed the bastards _slow_. Third off… maybe he's _lying_ about having been there, in which case the worthless fuck's _spitting_ on the memories of the poor bastards who didn't make it out alive, in which case, one way or another, I am going to make him wish I'd just _shot_ him."

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_(Now I lay me down to sleep_

_Pray the Lord my soul to keep_

_If I die before I wake_

_Pray the Lord my soul to take)_

_Hush little baby, don't say a word_

_And never mind that noise you heard_

_It's just the beasts under your bed_

_In your closet, in your head_

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**They don't get **_**selected in audition**_**.**

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A figure slid through the window and landed lightly beside Ginny's Weasely's bed. The figure reached into his bulky jacket, withdrew something, and placed it over the sleeping girl's mouth and nose; the object was held there for a few moments then returned to the jacket, and the figure cuffed Ginny's hands behind her back, gagged her, secured her ankles with a second set of cuffs, slung her over one shoulder, and slipped back out the window.

Someone was waiting for him; a certain tall, athletic-looking dark-haired young man with long fluted ears that flopped out to the sides of his head.

Harry stepped out of the shadows and placed the barrel of his E-Mag against the back of the figure's head.

"Say monkey, motherfucker."

The figure calmly passed something over his shoulder; Harry accepted it, backed off a bit and, still keeping the figure covered, squeezed part of it.

To his magically-attuned senses, it blazed alight like a small star. He critically examined it for a few moments, then holstered his gun and handed the object back.

"Fancy meeting _you_ here." He sneered. "I assume you've got a damn good reason for this." The 'you'd better' was unsaid but blatantly obvious.

The figure nodded, and carried on walking. Harry watched him go, then shook his head.

"I hate that smug _bastard_."

And with that, he faded back into the shadows as an engine rumbled into life and drew away.

About ten minutes passed, broken only by the rumble of a Tardis arriving, then the figure returned with a now awake Ginny struggling in his arms; the figure returned her to the bed, pressed the something against her face causing her to very promptly go back to sleep, unchained her, and paused, holding a compact spell focus over her forehead.

"Sorry, kid." He whispered. "I didn't have a hell of a lot of choice; Oblivius."

And with that he slipped off out the window.

Hermione Granger, asleep on a mattress in the middle of the floor, hadn't noticed a thing.

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_Exit: Light_

_Enter: Night_

_Grain of sand_

_Exit: Light_

_Enter: Night_

_Take my hand_

_We're off to never-never land._

- Metallica, 'Enter Sandman' -The Black Album-

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**Enter the Fnords Book 2:**

**Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

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**Heroes are **_**built from blood sweat and tears.**_

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Outside, the tall figure slipped into the parked Tardis, which vanished with that legendary grinding noise; he stumbled across the spick-and-span control room, watched with concern by his daughter, and scrambled into the toilets, where he proceeded to empty his guts.

Reeling back upright, his face pale, he caught sight of his own reflection; wild green eyes stared back at him out the mirror.

"_Not good enough, you son-of-a-bitch_." He hissed. "**Not. **_**Good**_**.** **ENOUGH!**"

And then he drove his fist into the centre of the mirror with all his considerable might, blowing fragments of powdered glass around the room.

"Dad…?"

He shook his head and staggered back into the control room, where he sprawled into the sofa with a cry that was a mix of frustrated sigh, despairing moan, and howl of rage.

His daughter closed the toilet door and thumbed the reconstruction switch, then squatted down beside him.

"Dad, are you okay."

"First Jenna, then Anastasia, then Carley, then Hermione, now Ginny – I just had to _backstab_ a little girl who _trusts_ me. _Again_." He bit out. "This does not exactly make for the _happy_ in my _pants_, how in the _fuck_ 'okay' do you _think_ I am? Ginny Weasely is a nice kid; she doesn't deserve what my _stinking_ luck and that sack of shit _Malfoy_ have in store for her – and there's goddamned _nothing_ I can do to stop it… shit, the only thing I can do is _ventilate_ the worthless _motherfucker_ who forced my hand, and make sure _my_ people _survive_ this _crap_… if only I'd cottoned onto what old mono-bollock was playing at _sooner_, _**goddamnit!**__"_

"If only." His daughter sighed. "If only the Ruinous Powers hadn't got wind of the Primarch program. If only the Emperor had kept a better eye on Horus. If only the Tyranids hadn't cost the Imperium so much. If only we'd realised what Beryl was doing before she did it. If only the Nalfers had wiped the Norfs out when they had the chance. If only the Grand Warlord hadn't lost his mind. If only Son Wukong hadn't killed Ryuunosuke Tendo. If only we'd drilled Tommy soon as he started the Dark Lord crap. If only Ben had cut Lucius Malfoy's other ball off too. If only your parents' Secret Keeper hadn't sold them out. If only your dad had been quicker on the draw when Tom came calling. If only your great-granddad had kept better tabs on things in Surrey. If only we'd never booked you a holiday on Shenth. If only the jimcracks weren't such backstabbing fucks. If only we'd realised what _she_ was up to in time. If only we hadn't trusted the Baron. If only we'd gone with your instincts and sent Hermione to Jurai City. If only one of us had stayed with her that night. If only we'd caught Tom last year … if only this, if only that. If wishes were Ultramarines, all of our problems would be over."

"I know, sweetie… I know. Still… can't help but wonder, y'know?"

"Been there, Dad. Done that. Got the T-shirt. The past is gone, and even we Time Lords can't do fuck-all about that." She shook her head. "We could have all the Tardises in the multiverse, and the things that made us would still be the same. I pray to the Emperor there's a better tomorrow at the end of all this – a light at the end of the tunnel, daybreak after the longest night – but we're stuck in the nightmare and holding out for a hero."

Harry's tired, haunted eyes finally met Setsuna's sad gaze; he grinned humourlessly and shook his head.

"Ain't temporal paradox a _bitch?_"

–_**=COMING SOON=–**_

(And oh boy is it unnerving how well 'Enter Sandman' fitted there)

Cheers,

Cal.


	2. Chapter 1

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_Stronger than reason_

_Stronger than lies_

_The only truth I know_

_Is the look in your eyes_

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Here is a star, on the fringes of a galaxy's spiral arm…

_Focus._

It's a G-type star, somewhat yellow, and a dwarf. On the Galactic Council charts, it's listed as Tars Sahal'dat; the locals call it Sol…

_Focus._

Here is a small and rather nondescript blue-green planet, orbiting the star mentioned above…

_Focus._

It's an oceanic Atlantis-type planet with usable levels of land, perfectly balanced in the Class 1 life zone, and ideal for Sahalvanic occupation…

_Focus._

Here is a cluster of islands, stood off the west of a continent. The locals call them the British Isles…

_Focus._

A bustling town in a country called England…

_Focus._

A detached house on a quiet suburban street, the back garden strewn with assorted motorcycles, the thunderclaps of a very loud engine ticking over tearing the peace and quiet away as a dog barks excitedly…

_Focus._

A bushy-haired teenage girl, seated on a low-laying and heavily-customised motorbike; she gives the throttle a gentle twist...

_Focus._

The engine's thumping ramps up into a shattering roar…

_Focus. _

The girl frowns, drops the bike back to that thunderous idle, and peers over the side, at the exhausts...

_Focus._

"Aw _shit_. Well, I won't need to clean that silencer again."

**Click.**

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**Disclaimer: I still don't own the Potterverse, I sure wouldn't be living in a trailer if I did.**

**Same goes for the other material I brazenly ripped off.**

**In short, if you recognise it from someplace else, it's probably not mine…**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 1: Back in the USSR**

**(In which Harry shows Hermione something rather special, and the gang return to the Collegium)**

An hour and a half later, Hermione Allison Granger was sitting on an upturned bucket on her parents' patio, just finishing attaching to her bike the second-hand silencer she'd scrounged out of her dad's shed, while ruminating that a year ago she wouldn't have really known where to start, when she heard the rumble of a very large engine coming up the street.

Usually, when one heard large engines on that street, they were the engines of motorcycles. Most of the mundanes who lived thereabouts drove 'sensible' cars, so hearing what sounded to be a big old American V8 approaching was most definitely out of the ordinary.

Rising and approaching the gate that separated her family's garden from the street, she found herself looking at an unfamiliar and somewhat clapped-out old muscle car; not ever having had much of an interest in old cars, Hermione didn't recognise the model offhand, though as the driver (the person she'd half-expected, one Harry Johnson) got out, she noted that the car was left-hand drive, and had a Kenti-style clutch lever on the gearshift stick.

"Hey, kiddo." he said, slamming the car door and sauntering over. "How's it going?"

"Oh, nothing much." she said. "I was just swapping my bike's silencer, the old one was completely shot."

"Yeah? It was probably the salt on those west-coast roads took it out. Any problems getting a replacement?"

"Nah, Dad's got like two dozen disassembled bikes in the shed, there was an old Jawa end-can just the same in there."

Nodding, Harry took her hand and headed inside and towards the subspace door.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"There's something I want to show you." he told her, a mysterious smile spreading across his face as he banged a second subspace door open and slouched through.

"What's that?"

"It's a surprise." Another door. This one was on the back of the Lucky Dragon's bridge, and she did not remember it having been there before.

The old Q-ship was in space, sunlight streaming past from 'beneath' her; smile widening, Harry led Hermione towards the door out onto the spelljammer's decks.

"Hermione," He said, "I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine."

He led her outside, and gestured up.

"The Earth."

And there it was, spread out above them, filling the sky – her world.

The Lucky Dragon was hanging in low orbit, perhaps a hundred fifty kilometres from the ground; Hermione had seen glimpses of this from cockpit windows before, but always from a ship that was oriented so that 'up' meant 'away from the planet', and the Lucky Dragon's wheelhouse was not exactly the ideal place to watch things beneath the ship's keel.

Her eyes found the coast of France, travelled swiftly across the English Channel, and she was looking at a speck of browney-grey that had to be Bristol; sweeping her gaze north, there was the scatter of islands around the northwest of Scotland, and tucked away close inshore from Skye, the inlet that denoted where Hogwarts stood, just peeking out from beneath a great whorl of fluffy white clouds that covered half of the Highlands and a good part of northern England too.

She barely registered Harry leaning back against the wheelhouse doorframe with a knowing smile on his face as he watched her watch their world.

"... oh." she finally said, unable to sum up the words to express how she felt.

"That's what we're fighting for, Hermione m'girl." Harry quietly told her, straightening up and resting a hand on her shoulder.

"It's... beautiful."

"I know."

They stood there in silence for a while, Hermione gazing in rapt awe as their homeworld turned below her, and then he put a hand on her shoulder.

"Happy birthday, sei kara. How's it feel to be seventeen?"

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Scant time remained between Hermione's birthday and the return to the Collegium; for Hermione, the days passed in a blur, her attention spread over making sure she had everything she needed for the coming Collegium year, getting in pointless raging arguments with her parents, and hanging out with Harry on those occasions she could actually find him; he'd been in a weird mood ever since their Daigon Alley trip, and whenever Ginny Weasely was mentioned (or turned up) he went quiet and entirely too calm – a bad sign if ever Hermione had seen one.

Eventually, the day for the Hogwarts journey arrived, and the CTMA as a unit managed to miss the train due largely to Harry procrastinating.

Thus it was that, at about the time the Express would be drawing into Glenfinnan, the whole lot of them were aboard the re-entering LSS-17332 Blink Dog when, unbeknown to anyone aboard the ramshackle old blockade runner, an exceedingly worried house-elf made one final attempt to locate the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir.

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Dobby was a house-elf. Thus, he stood about two feet tall with knobbly knees, knobbly elbows (hell, knobbly everything) over-large hands and feet, stick-like limbs, bowed legs, bony ribs, a pointy head, pop-eyes, and large wobbly ears that tended to flap around when he got excited, prick up when he was happy, and droop when he got upset.

Currently, upset was his usual state of mind; he wasn't a very happy house-elf at all, and hadn't been for years.

In fact, he hadn't been a very happy house-elf since shortly after he made the mistake of entering the services of the Malfoy family.

Now the Most Naughty Masters Malfoyses were talking about doing a very bad thing to the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir! The Most Naughty Master Mr Luscyus Malfoy Sir was saying that it was already in moteration! Poor Dobby didn't know what he was going to do next – he'd been frantically searching for the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir every time he had a scrap of free time, and so far he'd come up with a grand total of jack and shit.

And it seemed like had Jack left town.

"Ohhh, what is Dobby going to be doing?" he fretted. "Dobby is has to be warning the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir but Dobby is not being allowed to be telling on the Masterses, ooooh, Dobby is having a Conunderation."

Biting the bullet, he gave it another go trying to elf-pop to the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir's position, and was surprised and very relieved when it worked.

However, he banged his head on something, then fell on his nose.

"Shite. Sounds like something's shifting in the hold again, Chief." said what sounded to be a female Kenti-type Bigger.

Looking up, Dobby found himself contemplating a pair of booted feet. The thing he'd banged his head on was the bottom of a seat, and the thing he'd banged his nose on was… treadplate with trodden-in beercans? And he was surrounded by the almost-subliminal rumble of machinery? The floor was bouncing and juddering a bit, which Dobby found terribly rude of it. Floors were meant to sit still so things didn't fall over. All of these things added up to equate to…

_Oh, bad things_. Dobby thought. _That is why Dobby wasn't being able to be finding the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir. The Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir is being on a starship!_

He was perfectly aware his elf-pops weren't good for ranges of more than about what Biggers called a light day. This was a term that confused Dobby. To his experience, a light day was a day when the whole Family was off somewhere all day so he didn't have much work to do. How could a light day also be a distance? Biggers were so weird sometimes.

But whatever. Starships went a very, very long way, and when the master had Dobby go as far as Tranquillity Base, Dobby was exhausted when he got back, so going much further than that must be impossibly tiring. And Dobby knew starships went much, much further away than Tranquillity Base, so he was kind of glad his attempts hadn't worked.

He had a look around. There were several other sets of feet here, all of them wearing boots, probably each set attached to the bottom of a Bigger. Well, there was one set that wasn't wearing boots; this set looked like very big thin cat legs, so they were probably attached to a Kenti-type Bigger.

Wasn't this sort of room called a 'cockpit'? Dobby wasn't sure, and thought it sounded like a very mean thing to call a poor innocent room. Having a quick look around, he realised he couldn't see any chickens here, nor did the room appear to be a hole in the ground, so he wrote the name off as one of those Bigger things that don't make sense. Such as why rhubarb is called rhubarb when anyone can tell its celery crossed with lemons. It was rather obvious that this room didn't have a house-elf to look after it either, from all the dirt and rubbish. It was even more of a mess than the master's torture chamber – there was even messy stuff on the walls, and was that a cannabis plant growing out of the pile of dirt in the corner? Somebody didn't know how to treat a room. And was that _maggots_ on the bottom of that poor defenceless chair?

As Dobby was thinking all of this and stifling the desire to tut, the boots (presumably still attached to the Bigger who was wearing them) came back into the room.

"How's it look, Bruce?" a male Bigger voice asked from right above Dobby.

"She's right Harry mate. We're gonna have to strip and tune Number 2 turbine, but them cables are good as Kenti engineering."

"Bro." a female New Australian Bigger said. "That's us two minutes out."

"Roger that, sis. Easy as she goes."

"Here we go again." said the voice that Dobby was pretty sure belonged to the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir; why else would the Bruce voice have called that voice 'Harry mate'? "I wonder how many morons I'll have to kill this year. Well, next stop the bloody sorting… such fucking fun."

"Talking of which, I have an evil scheme." A Liverpudlian voice said.

"Of course it's not evil, it's just obnoxious." Said a matching voice.

"Shut up, good twin of mine, this is important. I hereby propose that the CTMA and friends, as a show of solidarity, commandeer our usual table instead of splitting out into Houses. I've had it up to my back teeth with that bollocks."

"Proposal seconded, Fred mate." Another New Aussie-type Bigger said.

"Thirded." A Kenti-type bigger rumbled.

"Fourthed." Said the second Liverpudlian voice.

"Are you sure we won't get in trouble?"

One of the Liverpudlians chortled.

"It's cool, Nev. I checked the school rules, they don't actually mention the seating arrangement during any meals or ceremonies at all."

"Let's get this show on the road." Said the Great Magus Mr Harry Potter Sir.

"Hey, talking of which, I got those CTMA T-shirts made up at last." A female Bigger with a slight but detectable Bristol accent put in.

"Nice one, kiddo. Hey guys, I'm gonna go change shirts; anyone feel like joining in with the fun?"

Several voices made remarks in the positive. Dobby quietly banged his head on the floor in frustration.

What was he supposed to do _now_? He knew he wasn't supposed to be on starships without the shipowners' saying it was okay; he had an unpleasant feeling that he'd accidentally been a rather naughty elf.

Right at the moment he was thinking that, an immense sandy-furred arm shot underneath the seat he was hiding under and tried to grab him; with a startled yelp, he popped away.

It took him nearly an hour to stop hyperventilating.

How in the bad things had that Kenti-type Bigger spotted him when he was doing the elf-hidey thing?

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"I am afraid I missed it." S'tarak'hai stated, sitting back upright.

"... what just happened?" Hermione asked.

"There was an anomalous thermal trace beneath Johnson's seat. Profile matched a lesser Sidhe, as did the smell." the huge catman explained, shrugging.

"Fast little bastard?" Harry asked, sitting back down.

"Indeed."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Draco Mercurio Malfoy was feeling a bit puzzled as he exited the Hogwarts Express.

He had intended to go and sneer at Harry Johnson in public, drop a few hints, that kind of thing; he'd decided to make a point of doing it on every Hogwarts Express trip, just to keep the psychotic bastard guessing. No point letting 'em see you sweat, and Draco refused to give the last Potter the pleasure of knowing he'd actually managed to scare at least one Malfoy very literally shitless.

But, to his brief but intense annoyance, there was no sign of the psycho or any of his cohorts. There were several of the CTMA's acquaintances, and a Weasely (the one who was a Gryffindor prefect) but Draco had avoided a confrontation. No point getting a detention before the year had even started, and he was very aware that the Weasely family had reasons to be decidedly pissed at the Malfoy family.

The thought made him smirk. After this year, they'd have even more reason to be pissed, but wouldn't know who to be angry with. It was kind of a shame, really; the Weasely girl was hot, especially for working-class filth. Draco amused himself with an idle fantasy about making a bedslave of her, then wrote it off as impractical. By the end of the year, she'd be worse than dead, and anyway, being on the receiving end of a berserk weredragon was not on Draco's to-do list for this lifetime. Like all dragons, the bastard was chronically overprotective of people he regarded as his property, and as far as Draco could work out that included the entire Weasely family.

As he entered the bus that would take him and his friends from the Glenfinnan railway station to the school itself, Draco's puzzlement received the nucleus of an answer when a very familiar dirty grey DX-32 came thundering across the moors and buzzed the station before blasting away up the glen on full afterburner, shaking the ground as the plume of plasma ignited. Draco immediately guessed – correctly, as it happened – that the entire CTMA were aboard the ramshackle old blockade runner; he flipped the bird at the roaring rust-bucket as it passed, hoping that at least someone onboard the old ship saw his offensive gesture.

(Incidentally, someone did. That someone was Talon Alpha First Class S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, who immediately promised himself to give the little snot a black eye.)

"Wow cool, what was that?" someone asked from nearby; a bunch of first years were stopped midway between busses and train, gawking in the direction the Dog had gone.

"That was a starship." A Kenti first year rumbled, sounding amused. Draco had a look, and positively identified the hulking tiger-striped brute as yet another Thousand Kingdoms landwarrior.

He climbed into the bus that the Young Serpents had chosen, and seated himself beside his fiancée; he really wished he had the keys to her chastity belt. His father was leaning on Janus Parkinson, and Draco had high hopes that by All Hallows Eve the keys would be his.

"Got the list?" he asked. Pansy nodded and handed it over; the Collegium admission list, acquired by Professor Snape. Draco read it with a frown, taking note that there were no less than sixteen children of loyal Death Eaters joining this year. Seven's parents were in jail, and one's parents were dead. That last one was Phillipa Himmler, and she lived at Malfoy Manor, so Draco knew her fairly well; he figured she'd make a fitting second wife for a man of his status.

"Many cats this year?" Theodore Nott Jr asked.

Draco nodded and passed the list over. "There's a bumper crop, twenty-six cats all in. Eight of them on military scholarship, all First Legion, and another three we have reasons to suspect of having ties to the cats Public Security, one of them possible Department 48. And there's a human Thousand Kingdoms landwarrior – a Jason Yee, again on military scholarship."

"Heh. 'Military scholarship' _my arse_." Pansy muttered. All the Young Serpents knew _exactly_ what S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath and his comrades-in-arms were doing at the Collegium, and the implications quite frankly scared the ever-living shit out of them.

Nott whistled, scanning the list. "Boy, that's almost two entire Talon Teams… And two suspected Saotome Enforcers – wow. We'll have to watch our step."

"Hey, what's this?" Daphne Greengrass asked; she was reading over Nott's shoulder. "Lily Arieth **Johnson**?"

Draco nodded.

"Father got the facts from our favourite source." He said. "She's actually Potter's mother; they're claiming she's his sister."

"I thought He killed the bitch?" Pansy asked.

Draco shook his head. "No; I've read the reports, He headshot her with a double-barrel positron blaster. It didn't kill her, but it mindwiped her pretty effectively." He accepted the list back from Nott.

"She's not another bloody Arcer were, is she?" Nott asked. Draco shook his head by way of a reply, and Nott made a relieved noise.

"I think we'll arrange a suitable encounter for her." Gaylene Felcher said, reaching over; Draco noted the unspoken request, and handed the list to the brawny gravballer. "Everyone see if you can find a suitable mudblood to get a hair sample from, Potter's sure to go balls-to-the-wind when his mother gets fucked, and when he kills an innocent man he'll be just as screwed as his psycho-bitch mother."

"Baaaaaaad idea." Draco stated.

"Oh? I'd have thought you'd be all for it?" Steven Lancelot asked.

Draco shrugged. He found it surprising that he was better-informed than so many far senior Young Serpents; but then, having a father in the Inner Circle does have it's advantages after all.

"Normally, yes." He said. "But Lily Potter is a Clanless post-Change weretiger with military-grade toxin nullifiers and hardwired master-level martial arts. I've read her dossier; she's exceedingly dangerous, if not nearly as bad as her son. Didn't you know she killed fifty-seven of His servants in the last war?"

"Tell you what, there's spare mudbloods, we could get a sample of her hair and have a go with her that way." Felcher suggested, nose raised.

"An excellent idea." Hercules Grytpype-Thynne said with a nod. "I propose we acquire hair samples from all of Potter's girlfriends and select a matching number of mudbloods, preferably from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. That would be a suitable Samhaine celebration."

"We'd better remove the memories from the mudbloods afterwards." Zebedee Gonk muttered. "We never know which of 'em might go whine to Potter."

Grytpype-Thynne nodded. "Good idea. Okay, people; let's do this thing."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Alice timed the Blink Dog's set-down to perfection, the artillery-like thunderclaps of turbine shut-down rolling across the parking area just as most of the other students were pouring out of the buses, causing broad grins to spread across the faces of Tara and the Walker twins as they got an overview of the shock and awe this show imparted on the scatterings of mundane-born Earther first-year students, and Hermione smiled a bit too, remembering how she'd felt a year ago when she first saw the now-familiar battered behemoth touch down.

Trooping down from the wheelhouse, they parted company with the sole first-year among their number – Ginny Weasely – via Percy ushering the shy girl off to join her fellow first-years, and then headed towards the entry-way into the main courtyard.

"Very, _very_ interesting." Harry said, nodding towards the tight knot of heavily-armed Kenti (and one human) who were stood in formation at the edge of the swarm of first years, looking much like a military unit on parade, except all dressed in civvies.

S'tarak'hai smiled.

"What's the deal?" Hermione asked. The group looked familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on where from.

"They're catboy's Talon Team, in it's entirety, and another crew I don't know, but I've got my suspicions." Harry said. "You know catboy, your old man's about as subtle as a sledge hammer sometimes."

S'tarak'hai let out a dark chuckle. "Pot. Kettle. Black, Johnson."

Harry snorted. "You wanna know the difference between me and your dad?"

"What would that be?" S'tarak'hai asked, cocking his head.

Harry jerked a thumb at another detachment that was loitering near the first years; five shapely catgirls dressed in minimal black leather things so tight they looked like they'd been sprayed on, all with assorted weaponry slung across shoulders and strapped to hips. Like the Puma twins, the five couldn't be Kenti, not even half-Kenti; their feet and faces were like those of a human, and they lacked wings; their only feline attributes were their ears, eyes, and tails. They were relaxing against the side of the courtyard, interestedly watching what was going on and very visibly eyeing up the girls.

"I make this stuff look _good_." Harry stated with a smirk.

Ben laughed out loud.

"Same old Harry." He said.

"C'mon, we better get inside or we're gonna miss the Sorting." Bruce pointed out.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The CTMA separated out from the orderly procession of students to tables as soon as they were inside the hall, in fact they never actually joined said procession; they came barging through the doors in a rowdy mob. Ben and S'tarak'hai grabbed one of the end tables making up the Slytherin row, while the others grabbed chairs, Fleggitt taking great glee in whipping away the chair Draco Malfoy was about to sit in, causing the bleach-blonde brat to land flat on his posterior.

"NELKRODDLY!"

"Oh dry up, old bean. What's a little bump, what?"

They set up smack bang in the middle of the room as per their wont, and seated themselves round the table, putting feet on it, lighting up cigarettes, passing round beers and otherwise being as loud and obnoxious as possible.

Luna, on seeing this, diverted, grabbed the chair she'd been about to sit in at the Ravenclaw table and joined them, rapidly followed by Harry's assorted girlfriends.

Dumbledore directed a doubtful look their way. Snape looked at them, raised one eyebrow, shook his head, and didn't say a word.

Once they'd settled themselves, Harry seemed to notice something in the area of the staff table. He frowned, and proceeded to fixedly watch Setsuna.

"What's up with Professor Meiuu?" Hermione asked, having worked out the target of his fixed glower.

Harry gave her a sideon look. "You wouldn't be asking that if you had the right cybernetic sensors."

S'tarak'hai frowned, and had a peer. He then cocked an eyebrow at Harry.

"I don't know." Harry said. "But she probably deserves it."

The big catman dismissively flicked his fingers, and turned his attention back to the first-years, whom McGonagall had just led into the Great Hall.

"There are some interesting ones this year." He remarked. "There is a cave elf amongst their number."

"Don't worry about the Drow sheila, S'tarak'hai mate." Ben said. "She's me adoptive sister."

"And therein presumably lies a tale." S'tarak'hai muttered.

Donald the Hat commenced to sing; much to Hermione's bemusement, the song he'd chosen this year was very familiar.

"This is so, so, wrong." She muttered.

Harry chuckled, still watching his daughter.

"It's certainly appropriate." He said. "Huh, didn't know Donald did air guitar."

Hermione nodded, feeling faintly disturbed. "That doesn't seem physically possible."

"You gotta admit, his accent's spot-on." Tara said.

Harry glanced at the Weasely twins.

"How long have you two been playing Thin Lizzy at Donald?"

"Um, well, we didn't." Fred said.

"It's awesome and I wish it was one of ours," George added,

"But it isn't." the two chorused."

The Sorting Hat finished up his spirited rendition of 'The Boys are Back in Town', bowed to the applause, then hopped up and down on his stool a couple times.

"Come on then, don't be shy! Let's get it on with, we haven't got all millennium! Roll up, roll up! Get your arses into gear!"

"I really like that hat." Harry remarked.

The sorting began with a long lanky individual by the name of "Arbetruthnott, Abraham" who was promptly dispatched to Slytherin to the tune of uproarious applause from that portion of the room and polite clapping from pretty much everyone else.

From there, the queue formed on the right. No pushing, everyone gets their turn. Thirty-eight students in, by which time the pale-furred Kenti whom Hermione recognised as S'tarak'hai's talon mage had been sent straight to Gryffindor, McGonagall called out, "Chaos, Asari."

Hermione looked at the so-named individual whom she guessed to be the adoptive sister Ben had mentioned, wondering what a 'Cave Elf' or 'Drow' might be, and was very startled to see the following. Apart from being female, Asari Chaos had coal-black skin, red eyes, delicately pointed ears, and snow-white hair. She was dressed in a rust-orange gown-like dress, with the typical tight little black corset over it, and she looked extremely worried as she sat on the stool, the centre of attention.

"GUDDAY SIS!" Ben hollered.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted, sounding a bit smug.

There was a stunned two-second silence, then Harry, Michelle and Ben started clapping, swiftly joined by Hermione, then everyone else at the CTMA table; the Gryffindor table gradually joined in.

The Drow girl settled herself at the CTMA table on a seat Ben swiped from underneath Theodore Nott, waited until the applause subsided, then said "Thankyou." in a very quiet, subdued tone.

"How come you've got a drow sister?" Ron asked Ben.

"I'm adopted." Asari stated. "My biological mother was shot down over snowside during the first New Australia-Menzoberranzan War. She was pregnant with me when she crashed, and she managed to survive for three months, during which time I was born, then she picked a fight and got killed by some wakkawalla who sold me to some klergawalkwakka who raised me until I could talk then sold me to a raft trader who sold me to a slave dealer in New Tasmania who sold me to Dad, who adopted me."

"You're really really lucky." Ron stated the obvious.

"Dad collects weird and unusual things." Ben told him, draping an arm round Asari's shoulders. "And, well, let's just say a pleasant cave elf is pretty bloody unusual, isn't she mate?"

"Am I missing something here?" Hermione asked.

Harry let out a low laugh.

"I'll tell you later." He said. He was still watching his daughter.

The next source of particular interest to the CTMAers came midway through the J's with, 'Johnson, Lily." and the whole CTMA going very quiet; Harry's attention finally popped off of Setuna, and he smiled slightly to himself.

"You okay, Harry?" Hermione checked. He replied with a cocky little grin and a wink, and she finally gave in to the temptation to scoot her chair across and lean against him, to which he responded by putting an arm round her shoulders.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat declared, sounding more than a little surprised, and the Puffs started yelling as a unit, accompanied by the CTMA.

Harry caught his mother's eye as she was heading for the Puffs tables, giving her a grin and wink; she responded with a nervous smile, but seated herself at her house table anyway.

A few students later, early in the K's, McGonagall called out, "Kent, Eiko." and Harry's attention snapped back onto the 'hot seat', rapidly joined by Hermione's.

This girl had the most incredible blazing red hair that was either natural or she dyed her eyebrows; it was even brighter than Weasely-red. She was short and very petite, with an expression of rapt wonder in her eyes as she took the surroundings in. She was dressed in deep blue cycling shorts, heavy laced forearm bracers, hiking boots and a Hello Kitty T-shirt, and as she proceeded to the hot seat she carried herself like a martial artist.

"Huh. Interesting." Ben quietly remarked.

"Hmm?" Harry asked.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat declared, very promptly.

"That girl is half Kryptonian, half something else I can't identify." Ben explained.

"Kent?" Luna remarked. "I wonder if she's from _the_ Kent family, the one Superman's from? Or is she just from Kent?"

Ben gave her a cockeyed look.

"Guys? STFU, I'm trying to watch the sorting." Hermione commented.

And, aside from the remainder of S'tarak'hai's squad and Harry's assorted catgirls, all of whom ended up in Gryffindor, that was about the last person the CTMA took much notice of until McGonagall finally got to the W's.

"Weasely, Guinevere." She called, and Ron's sister rose and walked over to the chair, looking vaguely like she was about to run away.

The hat was plonked on her head, there was a twenty-second pause and Donald shouted "GRYFFINDOR!" in a highly-amused tone that puzzled a lot of people.

Harry joined the varied Weaselys, his fellow CTMA'ers and many of the Gryffindors in cheering for the youngest Weasely as she walked over to the Gryffindor table, only to detour to the CTMA table at Ron's urgings; she blushed wildly at the attention, took a seat (which Fred had swiped from directly beneath Goyle) and sat there apparently trying to shrink.

The sorting then proceeded with a marked lack of any attention from the CTMAers (Hermione excepted) and as per the previous year once that was done with Dumbledore allowed a few minutes for pandemonium, did his clap-hands, bang-fork-on-plate, belch-O-doom thing, said almost exactly the same little spiel as per the previous year (but with the few words being catfish, peeler, elbow and spork) and then they proceeded on to the food fight.

Once that was out of the way and the resulting enormous mess had been banished, they began helping themselves to dinner.

"So, what's gonna be going down this year?" Ron asked.

"Good question, mate." Ben told him. "Ey, pass us that cheese sauce Harry."

"Here y'go."

"Well since we're all here, that makes this the first official meeting of the Collegium Trouble Magnets Association for this year." Said Fred. "And I hereby call it to order."

"Who died and made you God-Emperor?" Ron asked.

"Nobody," Fred told him, "I'm just the first person who got round to calling it to order. Lets see, that's me and George, our duly nominated president and trouble-magnet-in-chief Harry Johnson, my dear darling little brother Ron, our ginger brain-in-a-girl Hermione, our token New Aussie hot-rod ops Bruce and Alice, our association Responsible Jedi Person Ben,"

"Me? Responsible?" Ben Chaos said, sounding disbelieving. "Maybe in the universe you're from."

"Ben's irresponsible sister Michelle," Fred continued, ignoring the interruption, "The association hot girl Tara, our three Persons of Fashion Taste; Lavender, Padma and Parvati, our Very Weird Person Luna Lovegood, the Official Association Tiger Katarina, and Mr Large Kenti S'tarak'hai. Is there any business left over from last year? No? Good." He gestured towards Asari and Ginny, both of whom seemed to be trying to work out what was going on. "Item: My beautiful and wonderful little sister Guinivere, Harry's sister Lily, and Ben's sister Asari, have joined us here; I motion that we welcome them with our traditional love and respect for all sentient beings."

"Motion seconded." said George.

"Thirded." Ben put in.

"Fourthed." said Ron.

"OK, show of hands please... that's unanimous then. Gin-Gin, Asari; the Collegium Trouble Magnets Association hereby humbly and officially make you welcome to our noble and ancient Collegium. Er, I guess we'll welcome Lily when we get the chance."

The entire crew of them chorused, "Amen." apart from S'tarak'hai, who said, "Kiora." thus earning himself a long-suffering weird look from those amongst the group who didn't know that this roughly meant 'Welcome' in Kentare; Hermione idly mused that only six startlingly short months ago she would have been among that number.

"Right. Onto further business then." Fred declared. "Item: If anyone's changed room assignments, let everyone know as soon as you know."

"I had a word with the old fart." Harry provided. "Made sure they didn't try to put Bruce and Alice in separate rooms again. There's been a couple reshuffles, but none of us have changed rooms. I'll just check the first-year assignments... Asari, you're with the Kryptonian. Ginny, you're in with that Klingon over there – her name's Kurak – the one annoying Percy. Well, unless someone wants to engage in a ninja nametag reshuffle?"

"Nah, I'm good." Asari said.

"Same here; anyone who annoys Percy can't be all bad." Ginny agreed.

"Hmm." Harry gave the Hufflepuff table a dubious look. "Seems Lily's rooming with one Tasmin Appleby."

"Any relation to Paul Appleby?" Ron asked. "You know, the gravball manager?"

"Yup; he's her old man."

"Who's he?" Hermione asked.

"He's the majority shareholder and founder of the Appleby Arrows." Ron told her. "He was their star centre-forwards in the early years and he played for England in the Earth Series the last time we won."

"Oh, right."

"I suppose we had best maintain a close watch on this Appleby person." S'tarak'hai rumbled, frowning.

"Damn straight." Harry growled, clenching his fist. "If she messes with my sister I'll rotate her fucking grav elements. Well, better add Paul Appleby to my list of people to threaten this week."

Tara snorted while Ron looked outraged.

"So, anyone got anything else?" Fred asked, hoping to defuse his little brother.

"We need to keep an even closer eye than usual on Snape, and we need to recruit some Puffs." Harry stated. "Had anyone else noticed that the bastard keeps directing weird looks my sister's way?"

"I had noticed, yes." S'tarak'hai confirmed, while Ben and Tara both nodded. Hermione had a careful peer, and realised that Snape was in fact directing an unreadable side-on stare in the general direction of the Hufflepuff tables.

"We all know how far that son-of-a-bitch can be trusted – in other words, about as far as an anaemic slug can throw this building." Harry stated, leaning forwards. "If he touches my sister I'll waste the bastard and to Hell with the consequences. Keep your eyes peeled, folks; I've got one of my itchy feelings in my trigger finger."

Everyone nodded, and that was that as far as that subject went.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

After the feast, the CTMA mowed the Gryffindors out the way and went rampaging off up to the Gryffindor hangout in a yodelling mob. The Weasely twins had somehow managed to get a hold of Donald, and said enchanted hat was now sat upon Fred's head and belting out a bawdy ballad in three-part harmony with the matched pair of redhead pranksters; halfway to the hangout, McGonagall came pushing out through the swarm, gave the hat an annoyed look, snatched it off Fred's head, and hurried off, ignoring the way a certain Sorting Hat was now swearing at her; she was used to it and, let's face it, what kind of Glaswegian is going to let a lippy _hat_ get the reaction it wants?

On arriving at the Gryffindor hangout, the CTMA were somewhat surprised to find Artemis Fowl and half a dozen of the other Slytherin rebels lurking in the corner booth behind the pool table and conversing in low voices.

"Hi, Artemis." Hermione said, clattering over, and was sincerely surprised when her childhood E-friend nearly jumped out his skin. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Not entirely, no." Artemis admitted, grinning wryly. "But I will be. I had a bit of excitement over the summer if yeh know what I mean."

"Well, not really." Hermione admitted. "You haven't filled me in on the background, have you?"

Artemis grinned again. "Well, I had something of a close-run thing. I'll just say the Russian mafia play rough, and leave it at that."

"Man, for a genius, you're a bloody idiot." Harry remarked. "Why in the name of fuck didn't you get in touch with me?"

"But I did!" Artemis spluttered. "Are yeh going daft, old son? D'yeh not remember saving my father's bludy life?"

Harry gave him a sharp look.

"Was my daughter with me?" he checked.

"Aye, that she was." Artemis said, grinning appreciatively; like most of the male (or lesbian) students in Hogwarts, he wanted to get into Setsuna's pants, and unlike most of the rest of them, he'd never made a secret of it.

Harry groaned, and then shrugged with a wry smile. "Put it this way man, OK, so I did the job, it's just I didn't do it _yet_."

"What the bloody hell are yeh on about?" Artemis complained.

"I own a Tardis." Harry pointed out.

You could see the dots being rapidly connected within the self-proclaimed criminal mastermind's head.

"Ah, now I get where yeh're coming from." He said. "I suppose we'd better not discuss the job then; we can't be blowing any holes in the space-time continuum now, can we?"

Harry smiled grimly.

"Too fucking true; temporal paradoxes are a right cunt."

"Aye, I suppose that'll be why yeh told me not to talk about that mess until yeh told me I could." Artemis admitted, grinning his wry grin again. "So, that'll be enough about my summer; how was it for yehrself?"

"Aw, pretty quiet." Harry said with a shrug. "Started the summer by settling an old score – finally got Otto Skorzeny, bastard's been running from me for years. I'm not sure what the fuck he was doing in London, but shit, hell stinks more now, and Shatteraxe paid me a nice little nest-egg for the hit. Then right on the tail of that I got a decent job from Washu Hakubi and Darth Vader – they wanted a psyker busted out of Azeroth Prime, so I hired on some outside help in the form of the Walker twins, Tara, and their ship. Word to the wise man; if you're needing a blockade runner, talk to Bruce. That old banger is one shit-hot little boat, and those three _seriously_ know their stuff. Had a bit of a brew-up on Tatooine helping out the blockade runners with a certain Hutt who didn't know who not to mess with; got a bit sticky, but all's well that ends well. Spent most of the rest of the summer farming for information on Old Mouldy and his bumchums; it's a right bitch finding the right people to threaten when it comes to those bastards, but I picked up a few hot tips, and a few bounties on top of it. Not much cash involved, but hell, exchanging a fifty quid bullet and some leg-work for a couple million pounds is a pretty good deal." He noted that Artemis was taking a slug of Guinness. "Oh, and I got engaged to a R'hara'tath." As he'd hoped, beer came out of Artemis's nose.

"YEH WHAT?" the Irishman bellowed.

"I picked up a fiancée over the summer." Harry said with a shrug. "Aria R'hara'tath, she's catboy's half-human half-sister. Twenty-two years old, borged to fuck, and hot as a fusion turbine on one-ten."

"Fookin' hell." Artemis said, shaking his head. "Yeh're ta wed a fookin' R'hara'tath? Yeh got a helluva taste in the ladies, old son."

"Yup, she's a First Legion combat cyborg." Harry remarked. "Seems like a good kid, she's certainly got her head screwed on right, but waddya expect? She's _S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath's_ _little sister_. Of _course_ she's professional."

Hermione made a mental check-mark about that one, nodding thoughtfully as she did so.

In Harry's terms, about the best thing you could possibly say about someone was that they were 'Professional', the same as how, to Harry's mind, about the worst thing you could call someone without actively stating you intended to kill them was 'Amateur'.

**-/- End Chapter -/-**

Well, not much to say beyond, here we go...

Doghead Out.


	3. Chapter 2

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

* * *

_When you close your eyes, there's a frightened pride that lives for you  
That your mother's life and your father's eyes can't hide  
You had no choice, didn't ask the dice to fall for you  
Still your courage comes like thunder through the skies  
You're always the winner, the victor and the giver  
Somewhere through that winter you will not grow old _

* * *

Saturday morning, Hermione intentionally slept in, missed breakfast, got up just in time for lunch, and as she ambled into the Gryffindor hangout afterwards S'tarak'hai was just regaling the others with some sort of tall tale.

"...What we call, in your language, a sniper pipe." The massive catman said, giving Hermione a slight nod as she seated herself beside Harry. "There are different versions for male or female, due to differences in, shall we say, plumbing. Both serve an identical purpose; to direct urine away from one's person, allowing it to issue from the approximate region of the sniper's left boot, thus allowing the sniper to unload their exhaust without moving or, hopefully at least, affixing a lingering scent tag to their person. Are you following this?"

"Sure, go on." Ron said.

"Well, it so happens that Reiana had positioned herself in a crook at the peak of a tree." S'tarak'hai continued. "In actual combat circumstances, she would have directed her leg so as to pool her urine in the hollow where the two branches met. However, as this was a laser-designation exercise, she though, roughly, to the winds with this, I am not spending two hours squatting over a puddle of my own piss. So she stuck her leg out the side of the tree and let go."

"Okaaaay…" Bruce, who currently had his feet perched on a toolbox, said.

"And, as it so happens, the command talon of our section was at that moment setting up a forwards observation post at the foot of that very same tree." The big catman continued.

"Oh God, I see where this is going…" Fred muttered.

"And thus it was that my sister successfully pissed upon the head of our commanding officer." S'tarak'hai finished, to a chorus of groans and hysterical laughter all around.

"Hey, there's that Kryptonian kid." Ron distractedly changed the subject. "Lookit her hair; you'd almost think she was a Weasely."

"Kryptonian." S'tarak'hai shook his head. "It might perchance be interesting to spar with her."

"Krypton. Feh. I've been there. Had to wear exo-armour. It made the galaxy more pleasant to live in when that shithole went pop." Harry grumbled, shaking his head. "Shame about the population, I guess; they weren't so bad."

"Eh?" Hermione asked.

"Gravity about eight Earth gravities." Harry told her. "And that worthless dirtball had such a high fissionable content the night-side oceans glowed – Cerenkov radiation, alpha particles travelling faster than the local light-speed, right? Jesus, that planet was so hot it'd kill an unprotected human in a couple weeks tops, and that's the mild spots. High levels of vulcanism, acid rain that'd slag copper, air pressure through the roof – it wasn't a nice fucking planet. Hell, it was so fucking un-nice that it's core eventually went supercritical – fusion blast – and blew the whole planet into an asteroid belt. Turns out that the whole damn planet had been acting like a gigantic breeder reactor for millennia and it was only a matter of time before it all went bang. One of only fifty-seven naturally-occurring non-stellar fusion events on the record. Way I hear it, the population were descended from cons modified to be able to survive on a hellhole planet like that while still being able to function in an Atlantaic environment like Earth. It was a major fissionables mining outpost for the Imperium, the Ryza forge-world got half their radioactives from Krypton back in the day. I gather the Ordo Hereticus had a hand in the establishment of the mining colonies – some sort of extreme-conditions experiment that went tits-up when the Imperium collapsed."

"Well, so I get that they're really tough and they've gotta be pretty strong, but aside from that what's the big deal with this whole Kryptonian thing?" Hermione asked. "I mean, I've heard bits and pieces, and everyone makes out like it's a seriously big thing, right?"

Snorting, Harry got up, grabbed her hand, and towed her towards where the Kent girl was sat alone at a table and writing something in Japanese.

"Hey, Kent!"

The redhead didn't respond, instead continuing to write.

"Kent!" Harry repeated.

No response.

"Oi, Eiko!"

"Hmm? What?"

Harry settled himself opposite the little redhead, letting go of Hermione's hand.

"Hi." he said. "I'm Harry Johnson, this is Hermione Granger. I was wondering if you'd mind showing her something."

"Er, okay, but what?" Eiko asked, washing her brush and putting the cap on her ink bottle.

"Well, she was asking why the whole Child Of Krypton thing is such a big deal. Figured you'd be able to help me demonstrate if you're up for it."

"Sure."

Nodding, Harry turned his attention to Hermione.

"You know I'm heavily boosted." he said.

"Of course."

"Well, the primary limitation of cybernetic strength augmentation is finding somewhere to stand that you can really use it." Harry explained. "Say I stood on this table, set my boosters to full power, and pressed as hard as I can against the ceiling, I'd likely blow the table's legs off or put them through the floor before I could put my hand through the ceiling – woodwork is likely to go before stonework. Say I picked up the front of my road-train while standing on grass, I'd sink my legs up to the crotch in the ground unless I hit bedrock. Sure, I could go all Incredible Hulk and start lobbing tanks around, but I'd damn better be standing on a surface that can take the strain through less surface area than the footprint of a car's tyres. That time I chucked a railway locomotive, I was standing on the rails and I bent 'em bigtime, the top of the rail was two feet under ballast level afterwards. You get the idea."

Hermione nodded. "Sure, that makes perfect sense."

"Well then, watch this." Harry put his arm on the table in front of Eiko, in the classic offering-to-arm-wrestle position.

"I see what you're getting at." Eiko said, smile widening.

"Just keep your arm still, K?" Harry told her, and she nodded, her smile becoming a smirk.

Then Hermione found herself treated to a display of a cybernetically augmented weredragon pressing against a five-nothing slip of a girl's hand with all his might, to the point he warped his chair's legs and made the floor produce unpleasant groaning noises, without succeeding in budging Eiko's hand so much as a hair's breadth.

However, she couldn't help but notice that Eiko wasn't having to brace her feet, the Kryptonian girl's chair wasn't sliding at all, and nor was the floor making those same creaking noises from under said chair.

"How?" Hermione asked, watching the sweat start to stand out on Harry's face. S'tarak'hai added his hand to Harry's and now the tiny redhead was stopping a massive Kenti landwarrior too, still without any visible effort.

"It's an – urgh – form of – gark – telekinesis." Harry said.

"Daddy says it's related to how he can fly and, well, how I'll be able to fly once I learn how." Eiko helpfully provided, enjoying the audience her performance was gathering.

"OK, I give." Harry said, and let up; chuckling gleefully, S'tarakhai likewise released pressure.

"You lot aren't pulling my leg here, are you?" Hermione doubtfully asked.

Eiko's smile got even wider, for all that it barely seemed possible; she contemplated Hermione's muscle tone for a moment, indicated her own half-developed frame, and made a come-on gesture.

Over the next minute or so, Hermione discovered that trying to move Eiko's arm was a bit like trying to knock Harry over with a feather, and then found the back of her knuckles rapidly on the table when the little redhead pushed back with one finger.

"Yike! Oi, you stop laughing at me right now S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath!"

"You must confess that your expression was amusing, Hermione." The big catman replied, still chortling to himself.

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him. This made her feel decidedly childish, but after a moment's thought she decided that she was too old to need to worry about being seen as childish.

"Rak, are you picking on the poor innocent superbeings?" Tara queried, coming wandering into the room.

"It is Johnson's fault." S'tarak'hai placidly stated, looking a bit smug.

"Telekinesis." Harry told Hermione. "Kryptonians – or part-Kryptonians like Eiko here – are among the strongest contact telekinetics in the galaxy."

"What, is there any other sort of teek as strong?" Eiko asked.

"Yeah." Harry confirmed, nodding. "A couple species of dragon for a start. The odd Vorlon. Maybe a handful of Star Elves. About one in fifty Themiscyran Amazons. The Incredible Hulk. Alliance Primes. Few others."

"Where're you heading, Chief?" Tara asked; Bruce had just got up and was wandering out with the toolbox tucked under one arm.

"Gonna give it another go cleaning up the Beast's contacts." Bruce said. "And mebbe see if I can get that hole in the rear diff cover welded up. Wanna come-with?"

"Nah, I gotta go help Michelle with stuff."

"Are any of those Earther Imperial?" Hermione asked, pointing at the toolbox.

"Sure, I got Imperial, Metric, Norps and Frell in sockets an' screwdrivers." Bruce told her, slapping the toolbox.

"Oh good, it's just I'm needing to adjust the endcan on my bike – I think it's worked loose." Hermione said, rising to her feet. "Guess I might as well check over the oil and such at the same time. I'll see you guys later."

"Yeah, catch you later Hermione. I'll be up at the summoning room – me and Lavender got some catching up to do and catboy's wanting help recalibrating the holodeck." Harry said. "Been a laugh talking to ya, Kent. Maybe we can spar some at some stage, huh? Could be fun."

"Yeah, I'd be game for that." Eiko said. "Mum'd never forgive me if I slipped in my practise."

* * *

**Disclaimer: Divide by Cucumber Error. Please reboot and re-install universe.**

* * *

**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Start the Dance.**

**(In which a fat bloke begs forgiveness)**

Thus it was that Hermione was hanging around the courtyard doing a bit of maintenance on her bike in the company of Bruce Walker, who had his head under the Beast's bonnet and was producing a string of muffled swear-words and clanging noises, when she heard the roar of an unfamiliar motorbike engine.

There were quite a few motorbike engines Hermione could identify from the sound they made, and a small but significant number of common modifications to engine and exhaust system that were familiar to her. This one sounded almost like a small air-cooled Honda with utterly shot silencers, similar to the bike her father's club secretary's son rode, but there was an odd harmonic whine on the engine's note that she couldn't identify.

She rose to her feet, putting her can of chain lube down, as she saw the machine approaching. It looked very like it had a small Honda frame and engine, probably a CB250 or CB500, though the fuel tank, the running gear, and all the bodywork, was different; and was that a supercharger on the intake manifold?

She decided she definitely wanted a closer look; she paid some attention to the rider as he drew up at the end of the line of student's bikes, incidentally right beside her Norton. He was a stout fellow, dressed in a somewhat dog-eared leather jacket that looked like it'd been crashed on a couple times, reinforced denim jeans with patches right where the knees would get torn up if you dropped a bike at about thirty, respectably sizeable boots, gauntlet-style gloves, and a cheap polycarbonate full-face skidlid, from beneath the back of which protruded a short scruffy mud-brown ponytail.

"Nice ride." She said, leaning on her Norton in a way that would tell any real biker that yes, this really is my bike. Now she was closer to it and it wasn't moving, the engine and frame looked _very_ like a Honda Superdream, thought she couldn't for the life of her tell if it was the 250 or the 500, and that thing on the intake manifold was _definitely_ a supercharger.

Where exactly did one get a supercharger for an air-cooled Honda commuter bike?

"Thanks." The tubby biker said, revealing himself to have a mild Surrey accent; he pulled his lid off and hung it on the bars with the slight fumbling of the moderately-experienced rider, revealing himself to have a charmingly ugly and somewhat baby-like face with somewhat out-of-control hair and a dire need of a shave. "Hey _wow_, is that what it looks like? Is it _really_ yours?"

Hermione, used to this sort of reaction from bikers, gave her Norton an affectionate slap on the saddle.

"Sure is. My dad's _the_ Jeff Granger, when he built Swamp Thing he couldn't bear to sell Dragonheart, so he gave the old animal to me." She said.

"Wow…" The tubby guy said. "That's _cool_… it must be _great_ having a dad who builds bikes like _that_."

"It's got it's up sides." Hermione said.

"Yeah, I'll bet." The tubby guy said, then his stupid grin turned into a slightly babyish worried look. "Um, I don't suppose you know a guy called Harry Johnson, do you?"

"Sure I do, he's my best friend. Why?" Hermione asked.

The expression of worry became one of raw fear.

"Um, well, I dunno if he's said anything about me, but, well, I'm his cousin, right? And, well, we kinda didn't get on so good, and it didn't help that my bloody parents treated him like shit, and I kinda figured that the way I usta pick on him just, well, wasn't right, and I kinda want to apologise to him, and I dunno but if he just kinda spits in my face and punches my teeth out that's okay with me because, well, that's what I _deserve_." He said in a rush. There was a loud clang and disjointed burst of obscene Australianisms from where Bruce had just shot bolt upright and belted his head on the underside of the Beast's bonnet.

"His cousin? Dudley Dursley, right?" Hermione checked, automatically resting her hand on her H&K's pistol grip; at this point, if he'd seen her, Harry would have been nodding his approval.

"Uh, yeah." Dudley admitted.

Hermione considered this, then decided that, simply put, there was no way in Hell Dudley could cause Harry any problems, apart from the emotional type, and if that was the case she'd do her best to help her master through it.

"He's up at the summoning room." She said. "Come on; I'll show you the way."

"Uh, thanks." Dudley said in a small voice.

Hermione gave him a flat unimpressed look.

"Save your thanks." She stated. "Oh, and if you try anything funny, I'll _shoot_ you." Even if it consisted of helping Harry hide the body.

Dudley, looking increasingly worried, followed her. In a remarkable show of wisdom, he kept his mouth shut the whole way.

Behind them, Bruce Walker peered out of under the battered ute's bonnet, rubbing his head and still muttering obscenities; he glanced around, frowned a bit, and went to retrieve the tools Hermione had borrowed.

"Strewth." he muttered. "What's gotten into her?"

* * *

Harry Johnson was helping one of his girlfriends make up for lost time, at the same time as discussing something relating to firearms with S'tarak'hai.

In other words, he was lounging on a sofa in the CTMA's summoning room, with a partially-clad Lavender Brown tucked under one arm, the hand of that arm idly fondling her down below, and arguing in favour of gas operation with a large catman who, utterly unconcerned with the decidedly kinky goings-ons, was equally adamantly arguing that recoil operation was the way to go. It wasn't that unusual a sight in the summoning room; weaponry held an eternal fascination for most of the CTMAers, several of whom (including certain weredragons and landwarriors) could fabricate an argument about technical details just for the sheer fun of arguing about technical details of their favourite subject, and Harry didn't seem to think his assorted girlfriends needed much in the way of privacy, especially where concerns the tiny number of people he actually trusted.

When the door swung open and Hermione ambled in, he wasn't diverted from either of his current subjects of attention; in fact, he hoped she'd ask to join Lavender, and even if she didn't he'd enjoy watching her squirm. Over the time he'd known her, he'd taken a certain amount of glee in watching her get more and more envious of his girlfriends; he knew for a fact the only reason she wasn't fully on that list was the residual fear and emotional scarring from what Flint had done to her.

It was only a matter of time before he got exactly what he wanted. Somewhere inside her head, she'd already decided that one day it would be her in the position Lavender currently occupied, and now it was just a matter of her managing to pluck up the courage to ask.

Then he saw the overweight lad who was worriedly following Hermione in the door, and all thought of tying her up and screwing her vanished to it's usual place in the back of his mind as he recognised Dudley Darren Dursley. Lavender let out a squeak as his hand popped to a clawed shape, and then he forced himself to relax and resume stroking her.

Never let the bastards see you sweat.

"Interesting." He said. "Just what in the fuck are _you_ doing here?"

"Uh, hi Harry." Dudley said in a most un-Dudleylike tone of voice. "I, uh, well, I wanna say… I'm sorry."

Harry considered the former bane of his life for a long moment. He'd seen Dudley only once since his abrupt departure from Chez Dursley, on their bikes in Charing Cross Road when he'd rid the galaxy of Otto Skorzeny. At the time, he hadn't been entirely certain it was actually Dudley Dursley rather than being Dudley's double; Dudley, on a ratbike?

"You've got my attention; take a seat." Harry instructed. "C'mere, Hermione."

S'tarak'hai rose to his impressive full height, and went ambling over to the fridge as Hermione hurried over and settled herself under Harry's right arm.

Dudley sat down on the sofa opposite Harry, his pose a bit like a small schoolboy sent to the office of a particularly evil headmaster during the era when caning was approved in schools.

Harry considered Dudley for a long moment.

"You've changed." He said.

"Uh, thanks, I think." Dudley said.

"That was you I saw in Charing Cross Road when I nailed Skorzeny." Harry said.

"So I was right it was you hacked that scar-faced dude's head off, right?" Dudley asked.

"Otto Skorzeny." Harry said with a nod. "Formerly an SS officer in Nazi Germany. Heavily involved with ODESSA and the ratlines. Nasty piece of work, and one of the easiest half millions I've ever earned. Funny really – I didn't think it was you. I mean, Dudley Dursley, on a ratbike? Holy dogshit, the Pod People are invading. Okay, spill; what the fuck happened to you since I shoved an E-Mag in your face, and how in the fuck did you find the Collegium?"

Dudley looked at his hands.

"Well, it, uh, kinda started when I met this girl." He said, and then the damn broke. "Her name's Reyna Chang, she's Chinese I think, and really cute, and get this, her uncle's Jackie Chan… anyway, all the chicks at school hate her coz she's cuter than they'll ever be, and all the dudes at school are scared of her in case they offend her coz she's the cutest girl in the school. Anyway, you know me, fat kid here… I guess I was so used to getting told to go fuck off I just automatically started hitting on her anyway assuming I was gonna get shot down in flames but, y'know, gotta make the effort, and, well, it ended up I was her _only_ friend there. Y'know Peirs? Well, he kinda called her a nip, and we settled it like men – well, I settled it like a man, he settled it snivelling in the dirt with a bust-up face and Reyna pulling me off him, turns out she knows like kung fu. Anyway, there's fat dumb Dudley Dursley's got a new best mate who's the hottest girl in the whole school, dunno how I got that lucky but I'm not gonna knock it." He sighed. "I kinda said about it to Mum and Dad, only it turns out they're racist as fuck. So, well, I got to thinking, and I hadn't said about Reyna to Aunt Marge, and I know I'm not much good at thinking but I get by, and anyway you know how Aunt Marge gets me anything I want? Well, she used to. I whined until she let me get me motorbike license and gave me some money to get a bike, and I went down the bike shop in Little Whingeing – betcha didn't know there's a bike shop in Little Whingeing – and picked the evilest-looking bike in the place just coz it'd piss Mum and Dad and Aunt Marge off. Well, and I had a look at the mechanicals, and get this, the engine's hand-made outta solid titanium, I dunno who had it before me but they were a total idiot to let go of it, and I waited till I got the chance, and I packed up all the stuff I care about, which ain't much, most of my stuff is – was – crap, and I run off to where Reyna lives, and her dad's cool and I mean _really_ cool as in I had no idea there were dads that cool, so anyway now I'm living in the Chinese embassy in London and I've got a job at a speciality record store in Covent Garden. And anyway, when it turned out Mum and Dad and Aunt Marge hate Reyna for what colour her skin is it kinda got me wondering, and I kinda thought about a lot of stuff they've said, and I figured since they were totally wrong about Reyna they were probably wrong about a load of other stuff, and I kinda thought about, well, you, and I think if it'd been me in your boots with a gun in the gob of a dude who'd done the shit I usta do to you, well, I think I would've pulled the trigger. It's okay if you smash my face in, I deserve it."

Harry sat there in complete silence for a long moment then, idly wiping his hand on the sofa and poking Lavender in a pressure point that caused her to abruptly go to sleep, rose to his feet.

He ambled over to where Dudley was sitting, and stood there contemplating the overweight young man for a long moment.

"Apology accepted." He finally said, and handed Dudley a beer, then went and sat back down; Dudley released the breath he'd been holding.

"There's a few things you need to know, Dudley." He stated. "But I'm going to need to know how much of the facts you're aware of. I suppose Cho and this Reyna girl have filled you in on some of the basics?"

"Well, yeah." Dudley said. "Did you _seriously_ kill an evil overlord when you were like, a toddler?"

"Nah, my mum turned me into a living booby-trap. 'Voldemort' is the pseudonym of a terrorist leader who was operating out of this planet about twenty years back; he ran the Death Eaters terrorist gang. Just the latest in a long line of self-assigned Dark Lords, in other words jumped-up two-bit wankers who think they're big. Anyway, for whatever reason Lord Bitch-Tits got it into his head that I was a threat, I mean, fuck sake, just how the fuck many kids are born worldwide on the last day of July, and never mind across the galaxy? Duh. Anyway, so he decided to visitate my family in person. The son-of-a-bitch blew my father up so thoroughly all they ever found of Dad was a boot, still containing a foot, and a huge splatter of blood. He then headshot my mother with a particle blaster, bloody nearly lobotomising her in the process, and left her with the mind of a newborn baby. Next on his program of light music and slaughter was Yours Truly; instead of taking the particle beamer to me, he decided to launch a soul-eating spell at my cute lil' baby-Harry cranium. Suffice to say, it didn't work. Rebounded in the bastard's face and blew him into a wet red smear. Problem was, first off less than a tenth of his butt-buddies were ever retired, and instead of killing the bastard his little curse basically exorcised him out of his own body while blowing said body to bits. He ate his own soul, go fig."

"Ye gods." Dudley said. "Man, that's pretty far-out."

"Yeah, I know." Harry said with a nod. "Like to know why I was left with what they optimistically call your family?"

"Yeah, actually." Dudley said. "I mean, you wouldn't think it'd take a genius to work out Mum and Dad weren't the sort of people to leave a kid with pointy ears with, and, well, I didn't help, did I?"

"Not exactly." Harry said. "I don't entirely blame you, Dudley; children almost inevitably respect their parental figures, and if said parental figures are hell-bent on turning their kid into a thug…" He shrugged. "Besides, I'm perfectly aware what it feels like to realise you've fucked up. Anyway, the why is a long story. It's because of something my old dear did before Old Mouldy turned her brains inside out. She used a piece of supposedly-lost magic to set up a ward of protection between Yours Truly and Mouldy Vouldey. It's what's called a blood ward, and it relies on me spending at least a certain amount of time per year living in close contact with a blood relative of my mother separated from me by at most two generations." He shrugged again. "In some ways, it's a pity it did nothing to protect me from said relatives. In other ways… it's actually rather useful that my 'childhood' resembles a recipe for how to create a serial killer, because according to the intelligence I've been able to track down, I'm the only person in the galaxy capable of finishing the self-styled Dark Lord Voldemort off for good." He shrugged yet again. "Besides, the job's gonna pay pretty good with the price that bastard's got on his head."

"So, uh, what do you do these days?" Dudley asked, starting to get the idea.

"Bit of this, bit of that." Harry said with yet another shrug, casually arranging Lavender in a more comfortable-looking position. "Much of anything if the price is right, though I reserve the right to ventilate anyone who tries to hire me to mess with the tiny number of people I actually like. Long story short, rich people bring me their woes, and I charge them lots of money to solve said woes in an unnecessarily violent manner. When the big boys have a problem, they contract a professional – such as me – to make the problem go away. Sometimes it's ventilating some worthless fuck, other times it's preventing the ventilation of some valuable fuck. Sometimes it's uplifting some research data, other times it's making sure some research data stays put. Sometimes it's kidnapping someone, other times it's retrieving someone who's been kidnapped or preventing someone being kidnapped. Hell, sometimes it's even uplifting an artefact and taking it someplace it can do my wallet some good instead of sitting around in a safe bringing nobody any joy. Occasionally I take up bounties or protect shipments, or hunt monsters; just last month a major company who will remain nameless contracted me to go to Panama and deal with a zombie infestation – that one paid well, especially since they agreed to cover my munitions. Most of the time I seem to end up hunting terrorists, but what the hell – your average government will pay a lot of money to get their home-grown problems solved in a permanent way."

"You're a mercenary, right?" Dudley checked.

"Yup. And a bloody expensive one too."

"Hey guys, what's happening?" Tara asked, wandering in with Michelle and Asari in tow. "Oh, new person?"

"This is my cousin Dudley." Harry said. "He's past to straighten things out; we didn't exactly part on the best of terms."

S'tarak'hai snorted loudly.

"Shut your cake-hole, catboy."

"I did not say a thing."

"Anyway," Harry said, turning his attention back to Dudley, "We're heading down to the Clown and Wanker in about half an hour – sorry, the Crown and Anchor – it's the decent pub in Hogsmeade. If you wanna come-with, well, I ain't gonna stop you."

He rose to his feet and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Hermione asked.

"To think. In private." Harry told her, and left.

She sighed, slowly shaking her head, then glanced at Dudley.

The overweight lad was sat there looking unnerved.

Tara moved Lavender so she was laying in a safe position on an unoccupied sofa, then seated himself opposite Dudley, where Harry had been.

"Gudday." she said. "I'm Tarai T'rash'gal, I'm the navigation officer of the LSS-17332 Blink Dog, you probably saw her when you were riding over – she's the grey-brown rat-rod starship that's parked at the back of the Collegium car-park. Me and the skipper and the captain are all studying at the Collegium, and since we're – well, were – the whole crew..." She shrugged. "Hey, and this is my friend Michelle Chaos."

"Gudday, mate." Michelle said.

"And this big lout is S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, and I know he wants you to think he's scary but he's actually a big teddy-bear."

"So much for my street cred." S'tarak'hai rumbled, sitting down beside Tara.

"And I guess you've met Hermione, right?"

"Sorta." Dudley said.

"So you're Harry's cousin, right mate?" Michelle asked.

"Uh... I guess?" Dudley said.

"I guess you and Harry didn't part on the best terms, right?" Tara asked.

"That's an under-exaggeration." Dudley told her. "Look, my parents are like Nazis or something, right, and, well, Spo- I mean, Harry didn't have a good time growing up, right?" He shook his head. "I usta bully him pretty bad, and, well, what Mum and Dad did to him just... wasn't right. I guess I only really figured that a few months back – I guess I hadn't really thought about it before, y'know?"

"You are a remarkably courageous young man." S'tarak'hai remarked, giving Dudley a measuring look.

"Uh?" Dudley intelligently asked. "Aw, c'mon, I were shaking in my shoes!"

The huge catman let out a low bout of Kenti cough-laughter.

"Men who feel no fear are not brave." he stated. "They are insane. No, my friend; true courage is when you do not allow your fear to rule you. I am a warrior in Her Radiant Majesty's First Legion, possibly the most elite military formation within the boundaries of known space, and I am very familiar with fear. It is useful in moderation; too little fear and you become cocky. Cocky warriors die young."

"... um, I thought freaking out in a fight was a good way to, well, get killed?"

"Undoubtedly." S'tarak'hai said, nodding sagely. "But there is a difference between feeling a little afraid and panicking. I shake after every firefight, but I have never panicked under fire." He grimly shook his head. "I have seen men panic under fire. They do not shake afterwards. Usually they lay very very still indeed. No, my friend; I have heard the tale of the last time Seriath Johnson saw you and your parents. The fact that you are here shows courage in and of itself, as does what you had to say."

* * *

When Hermione arrived in Harry's room about an hour later, having spent the interim talking with S'tarak'hai, Tara and Dudley, she found Harry hunched over his coffee table and cleaning the big revolver he usually aimed at anyone who banged the door open.

He took note of her entry, nodded, and went back to cleaning the barrel as she sat down beside him; they sat in silence for several moments.

"Harry..." Hermione began. She felt a bit hesitant about this.

"Sup?"

"... are you okay? You know, with your, well, cousin and all that."

Harry put the huge revolver's barrel down and laid the cleaning rod beside it.

"Good question, sei kara. Good question." He slumped over, his head landing in her lap. "Frankly, I just don't know."

She started running her fingers through his hair; he continued talking.

"I mean, a part of me wants to just shoot him and walk away. Hell, part of me wants to work him and his bastard parents over, right?" He closed his eyes for a moment. "I... Hermione, you have no idea – absolutely no idea – how close I came to killing them this time last year."

"Why didn't you?" she asked.

"... good question." Harry sighed again. "I guess... ah hell, I hate them and I've hated them my entire life, but they're about the only family I've got left. And... y'know, it's not Dudley or Petunia I'd really like to see dead."

"Vernon." Hermione said, and Harry went as rigid as a board for a long moment.

"Yeah. Him." Harry raised one hand and clenched his fist. "I... look, you may think not killing that sick fuck was me being kind, but it wasn't. I don't want you to know what ordinary decent criminals do to paedophiles in the pen – it is not pretty but it's exactly what the sickos deserve. Shanking those fucks would be too kind."

"Why are Dudley and his mother still alive, then?"

"Because blaming a gun is dumb and I've never heard Petunia say no to that sack of shit she calls a husband."

"... waa?"

"Dudley was Vernon's tool. That's all there is to it. Fucking sheep playing follow the leader – how the hell was he to know? Fuck it, I... hell, this new Dudley, I guess I've got some sort of respect for the guy. He's a stupid piece of fat shit but he's got some fucking serious guts. The last time I talked to him, he had a gun barrel in his mouth and my finger was on the trigger, and I have no fucking idea why I didn't squeeze it. I guess... look, I'm not related to Vernon but Dudley and Petunia are family. Family's important."

"I'll disintegrate the bodies if you need me to." Hermione said.

Harry stared at her for a long moment, then suddenly smiled, reached up, and stroked the back of her head.

"Sie kal vei, sei kara. C'mon, let's hit the pub."

* * *

In the end, Dudley Darren Dursley found himself following the Walker twins' Holden Brigand ute down from the Collegium to Hogsmeade as the rusting wreck of a truck was the only roadwheeler slow enough for his Honda to keep up.

Walking into the Crown and Anchor – a long two-storey building with white harling and a slate roof, with a very traditional pub sign out the front above the door – he felt almost like he'd walked onto another world. Hogsmeade was an experience in and of itself; maybe half the passer-byes looked human, especially in and around the pub, and he found his bike being interestedly peered at and commented on by an assortment of weird looking creatures and people he guessed weren't as normal as they looked.

"Is that what it looks like?" one of these sort-of-normal-looking people – a tall and faintly Scottish-sounding girl with blue hair and minimal clothing – asked, peering quizzically at the Honda's engine.

"Uh?" Dudley said.

"R J Saotome... Great Scott, it is!" a thing like a humanoid poodle in a punk outfit, who possessed an extraordinary upper-crust English accent, said.

"Um, yeah, y'know, I dunno what that means but, y'know, from what this bike is I reckon he was crazy to let go of it, right? I mean, the fuzz down south found it abandoned someplace and..." Dudley drifted off, unnerved by the astonished looks several of the weird critters were giving him.

"Good lord!" the poodle-punk-thing boggled. "I say, I say, are you telling me you don't know who the Saotome Heir is, old chap?"

"... well, kinda, yeah, and, y'know, I don't know what that means." Dudley admitted.

"Oh I say! That's rather startling, what?"

"His name is Ranma Jaku Saotome." the blue-haired girl said. "He's the future ruler of Clan Saotome... and you don't know what that means, do you?"

"Er, well, no?"

"I say, I say, you're mundane, aren't you old bean?" the poodle asked.

"Well, er, if you mean I ain't got superpowers like me cousin, well, yeah."

"Oh well, it don't matter, we can't all be everything, what?" the poodle said, patting Dudley on the shoulder. "Oh I say, where in the galaxy have I put my manners, what? Splekkett Fortaggle Wartwiddly, at your service my dear fellow. I'm a Frognorfian, what, straight out of Hive One back on dear old Frognorf, eh what?"

"Um, hi, I'm Dudley Dursley, I'm from just outside of London."

"Charmed I'm sure, eh what?"

"I'm Kari Mizuno." the blue-haired girl said. "I'm a Saotome clanner and damn proud – born and bred on Dachaig Nuadh! Best planet in the whole damn galaxy, best Clan in Clanspace! And, hey, I know I'm just a werewolf but I'm gonna sign the pledge for Clanguard soon as I'm done at the Collegium next year, I've seen the medals my cousin's won and I know that's what I'm meant for."

"Gudday, I'm Asari Chaos, and yeah, I'm from the Chaos family, the Grand Warlord's my adoptive dad and, y'know, don't worry about the whole Drow thing because I was brought up New Australian." said a girl with jet-black skin and snow-white hair.

"Oh yes, you don't know me yet." said a dreamy voice from near a very beat-up bright yellow and American-looking car; focusing in that direction, Dudley found himself looking at an oddly-dressed blonde hippie with oddly protuberant silver eyes, accompanied by a tiger. "Hi, I'm Luna Dolphin Lovegood and I know you don't know me yet but that'll fade and so will the head-meltage, oh, and this is Katarina, don't worry, she doesn't have germs."

"Luna," said an Asian-looking girl who'd just got out the other side of the yellow rustbucket, "You're being thunorgish again."

"Well, asking me not to be thunorgish would be like asking you not to be Indianish, Padma."

"... well, I guess, but you don't need to hit people over the head with it."

"It's more fun that way." Luna said, shrugging. "Hey, guys, this is Dudley Dursley and he's Harry's cousin from London. He's a bit mundaneish and kinda confused but he's okay really."

"What ho, our glorious leader has spoken, what?" Splekkett said, bowing. "I say, I say, would any of you chaps perhaps like a little drink, what? My round."

"Mine's a pint." Kari immediately said, and various people chipped in.

After a few moments Dudley found himself being instructed to tell Splekkett what he wanted to drink (beer) and then being dragged into the pub with a cry of, "Oh I say, I say, welcome to the Ravenclaw rebellion, my dear fellow! Jolly good show, chaps!"

* * *

Two hours later and with a pleasant buzz on, relaxing against her favourite pillow (IE Harry) and quite unconcerned at Lavender using the other side of Harry as a pillow, Hermione found herself going back to alert mode on the approach of Dudley Dursley, who was accompanied by Cho Chang, the Patil twins, and Luna.

Harry likewise noted the approach of his childhood nemesis; he stiffened up, ruining his pillow-status, so Hermione sat up and Lavender made a complaining noise.

"Hey, uh, cuz... um, y'know, is it okay if I call you that?" Dudley asked.

"It's an improvement on Spock." Harry said. "I see you've made a few friends."

Dudley sat down in the space the various Blink Doggers had just made by budging up, then more CTMAers budged up thus making room for Dudley's companions.

"Er, how's it going?" Dudley asked.

"Not bad. How's yourself?"

"Hey, having a good time, right? Um, Luna says there's a job open as the College-um groundskeeper's assistant, right, and I was kinda thinking about asking 'gissajob' because I don't wanna be dead-weight on Mr Chang and I kinda like it here." Dudley blurted out.

"Look, man. I ain't the boss of you, okay?" Harry said.

"... I guess I just don't wanna do anything that's gonna send you apeshit."

Harry stared at Dudley (who went as rigid as a board) for a long moment. Hermione recognised Dudley's mannerisms on the spot; it was what happened when Harry was using the Dark Side to mind-read someone. It was that reaction to someone staring straight into someone else's soul.

"... huh." the weredragon mercenary muttered, sharply shaking his head, and then finally relaxed. "Okay, we're cool. Hey, and Dudley?"

"Um, yeah?"

Harry laconically extended an arm. After a moment, it became obvious he was offering Dudley a handshake.

"Welcome to the family. And, more to the point, welcome to the Collegium Trouble Magnets Association."

-/- End Chapter -/-

AN – Today I will mainly be smug, because I own a Hog.

Yes, I Now Can Has Harley-Davidson.

Purchased second-hand, my beautiful new motorcycle is someone else's abandoned project; the previous owner ran out of money and enthusiasm with very little work left to do on the bike, she's fucking mint, and I got her for a song. She is shortly to be shipped off to Bikes & Bits in Nairn (best damn bike mechanics in the area) for the tiny amount of remaining work and her MOT.

You may envy me now... and if you're wondering what that's got to do with anything, well, I'm telling fucking _everyone_.

Doghead Out.


	4. Chapter 3

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

* * *

_I'm a witness to the moon and stars above_

_I'm aware of the crimson sky_

_I'm a witness to the crumbling walls as well_

_But I'm not your alibi..._

* * *

Dudley Dursley wasn't really used to getting up early, but since his on-the-spot acceptance for the post of Assistant Groundskeeper, that was having to change and change fast.

He'd done his best to adjust his body clock on Sunday. It was a trick he'd come up with several years prior when attempting not to be half asleep mornings at school the first few weeks back after the summer holidays – don't go to bed Saturday night, stay awake until the sort of time you'd call getting an early night on Sunday, and sleep for twelve or more hours yet be up on time. Or, at least, that was the theory. In practise it only sort-of worked, but shambling round like a caffeine zombie all morning was arguably better than sleeping in, and certainly led to less shouting in Dudley's educated experience.

By the time he'd punched his alarm clock, crawled out his pit, shat, showered, shaved, eaten bacon and eggs, and drank a couple cups of the foul and extremely strong diesel-like substance Hagrid MacDuff called coffee, he wasn't yawning any more, even though he was still shambling a bit. He knew he'd be shagged out come that evening, but whatever – no pain no gain.

Most of the groundkeeper's morning routine seemed to consist of tending to an assortment of weird, wonderful and fearsome beasts, each of which Hagrid was on first-name terms with, from a blend of horse and eagle named Buckbeak to Andy the bullette (this sort of shark-turtle thingy) to the group of glowering centaurs who immediately lightened up on being told that Dudley was A) a 'guid laddie', B) Hagrid's new assistant, and C) Harry's cousin.

The final part of the critter-tending round involved a set of stables containing these creepy emaciated-looking bat-winged horses that apparently liked to eat a mash composed of oatmeal and blood.

"Now, this'll look aye weird, but-" Hagrid began, but Dudley butted in.

"Woah. What's with the creepy-looking horse-thingies?" the fat lad asked.

Hagrid gave him a sharp look. "Yeh kin see tha Therestrals, laddie?"

"Well, if that's what those are called, then, yeah. So?"

"So yeh kin ainly see 'em iff'n yeh've seen someen die."

"... oh." Dudley said, remembering his encounter with Harry in London. "Hey, uh, how's that work?"

"These wee beauties are aligned tae tha Reaper." Hagrid said, pausing to give one of the Therestrals a rub behind it's neck ridges; the scrawny-looking winged horse snorted and shifted it's shoulders to alter the position of the huge man's hand. "I ken yeh cannae see tha Grim Reaper, but iff'n he's bin intae yair line o' sight, it has it's effects on a laddie."

"Grim Reaper, huh? Are you saying there really is a skeleton with a scythe and such-like out there?" Dudley asked, giving it a go copying how Hagrid was rubbing the Therestral's neck and shoulders; the big beastie gave him a thoughtful look, then accepted the rub with an air of pleased majesty, shifting it's shoulders to get presumably-itchy bits under his hand and snorting it's approval.

"Aye." Hagrid said. "Nivver seen him masiel, an' I'll remember tae thank tha Emperor fair that when I say ma prayers taenicht, but I ken folks wha hae. Tha Headmaster's yin o' em. It ainly happens fair sensitives wha hae verra nearly kicked tha bucket."

"... oh." Dudley said. "Um, I'm guessing these fellers are supposed to be so skinny, right?"

"Aye; yeh cannae mak a Therestral fat."

* * *

**Disclaimer: ARR JIM LAD! WHERE BE MY PARROT?**

* * *

**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Nobody likes a wannabe.**

**(In which something is struck off the list of things that'll never happen)**

Following the slight hiccup of Saturday and a quiet Sunday, Monday arrived quickly, and with it the beginning of the year's course load.

Sat at the usual CTMA breakfast table, with the usual people, at the usual time, eating the usual food, Hermione spent a moment reflecting that the more things changed the more they stayed the same.

"Wonder if this Lockhart bloke's any better than Quirrel?" Neville remarked. Him being at the CTMA table was still a slight surprise, carried over from the end of the previous year; thinking about it, Hermione realised she couldn't remember when Neville had migrated their way. He'd kind of become a CTMAer by default due to detesting Snape and being Ron's room-mate at some point; and she couldn't think of any particular reason for it to matter anyway.

"Don't get your hopes up." Harry stated. "He isn't who he claims to be, I'm sure of that much just going from the facts he missed in that Garg's book of his. For example, the rations didn't run out on the four hundred twelfth day of the siege, they were dry by the three hundred seventieth, and the first person who fried fillets of enemy on a machine-gun barrel was Dan Newcombe, crazy fucker that he is, not Briareos – the Duke's about the only person I know who's batshit enough to think of it then actually do it. We didn't manage to knock out Old Hellfire until the one thousand fifteenth day using an unexploded heavy mortar shell as a makeshift land-mine, Jal Kessek squatted at ground zero and shorted the fuse, and Deunan and Briareos were the only survivors from the strike team – Lockhart claims it was a modified freefall bomb on the nine hundred twenty-seventh, he claims it was remote-detonated, and he claims to have been on the team that took it in. Oh, and it definitely wasn't Lockhart who suggested it, it was Nike Valmarre, a civvie who used to work in demolition, and the Jimcracks got her fifty days later – we managed to get her back after the Kenti came, but she's never been the same since and I'm not surprised really though when it comes down to it she's lucky, there's only thirty-seven Garkers planetwide who survived being captured by the jimcracks. Oh, and while I'm at it none of them were named Sie Vehara – we had to give her a loaded gun and some privacy. The Mayor of Garg's Landing was killed during the initial shelling, not shot on the twentieth day. Hell, about the only fact he got right was how long the siege lasted."

Asari started to ask something as she looked up from her book with a surprised expression, but hadn't got further than opening her mouth when Luna came wandering over with tigress in tow and said, "Hey, guys."

She was dressed in her usual tie-dye assembly, but with the addition of a somewhat eye-blasting bright orange top-hat.

"Hey Luna, what kept you?" Tara asked.

"Oh, I just had to talk to a man about a plan. It was rather important." Luna said, ignoring the sharp look this caused Harry to give her as she sat down on the chair they'd saved for her and absently gave Katarina a sausage, which the tigress devoured with obvious glee.

"You're quite knowledgeable about events on Shenth." Asari said to Harry.

Harry snorted.

"In some ways, I wish I wasn't." he told the Drow girl. "But... look, someone's gotta remember the men, women and children who didn't make it out, and since everyone who came home alive from that hellhole calls me 'Sarge', that someone is me. I wish I didn't remember, but I have to remember. Of every sapient being who was in that city when the jimcracks hit Shenth, nine hundred ninety-nine out of each thousand died; I will not ever allow myself to forget. The eighty-five conscripts who made it out alive, I'll stay in touch with till the day they die and when that happens I won't rest until I've avenged them. The conscripts who could still fight at the end – those are the finest sapient beings I have ever had the honour to know. The people who didn't make it I couldn't forget even if someone mindwiped me. Someone has to remember the limit of sapient barbarism; forget your history and you're inevitably going to repeat it."

"So, what do you reckon about this Lockhart bloke, Luna?" Bruce asked, and Harry gave him a grateful side-on look for bringing the massively uncomfortable subject to an abrupt halt by invoking the hippie.

"I have reasons to suspect his mother was a hamster, and it seems plausible that his father smelt of elderberries." Luna told the scruffy New Australian. "He is a very silly person."

"Monty Python?" Hermione asked, giving her a cock-eyed look.

"Well, they're rather good at imaginative insults. Would you prefer it if I swore a lot?"

"Nothing wrong with swearing a lot. It gets the point across." Harry remarked.

"Well, yes, especially from a big scary person like you or S'tarak'hai, but I'm not very big or scary and Katarina is much better at getting points across than me because everyone understands grr when it comes from a tigress." Luna replied, unconcernedly shrugging.

"When do I swear with any regularity?" S'tarak'hai asked, puzzled.

"Usually when people are shelling you." Harry told him.

".... ah. Yes."

"So, what've we got today?" Hermione asked, as per the usual morning ritual and taking advantage of the lull in the conversation.

Pulling out the timetable that Tara had made a point of compiling the previous day, Harry gave it a thoughtful look.

"Course load's up." he said. "We're on three classes a day now. Mondays it's all same old – alchemy in the morning, assault magecraft first afternoon period, cybermancy last."

"Alchemy, huh? Great, Snape. When the hell are we gonna catch a break?" Ron complained.

"It stops being a required subject end of next year." Harry told him, shrugging.

"Cool – I'm so shitcanning it soon as I can." The ginger Liverpudlian said, nodding firmly.

"I don't plan on giving the bastard the pleasure." Hermione said. "What're you looking at me like that for, Luna?"

"Nothing!" Luna protested, a bit too quick, and punctuated by pulling a book (titled 'A Journey Beyond Words') out of down the front of her jeans, turning it upside-down, and starting to read just a bit too intently. Hermione accepted that with a shrug since getting a straight answer out of a Luna who didn't want to give a straight answer was a bit like getting milk out of a duck.

"Hey Luna, why do you always read books upside-down and back-to-front anyway?" Ron asked, momentarily screwing with various people's heads at the abrupt slightly disjointed subject change, and in the process once again demonstrating just how weird his trains of though could get.

Luna considered her book for a moment, blinking in a bemused fashion at this question.

"They're more interesting this way up." she said.

* * *

As they arrived in the alchemy lab, Hermione found herself wondering exactly how Snape was going to be his usual less-than-pleasant self this year. Hopefully, he'd continue pretending everyone outside of Slytherin didn't exist.

Today, the CTMAers were the last group to arrive; everyone else was already seated in the usual places, in other words Death Munchkins near the front and everyone else clustered as tight as possible round Tara and S'tarak'hai's usual desk.

Same old.

However, an immediate break from the routine arrived when Hermione noticed the neatly-folded slip of paper that was laying on the desk she usually shared with Harry. It had been torn out of a ring-bound notepad, and had a startlingly realistic ink drawing of a spider on the top.

She unfolded it, and had a quick read, discovering it was all carefully written out in very square block capitals;

-/-

LORD STORMCLAW –

IT MIGHT BE WORTH YOUR WHILE TO PUT TRACE ENCHANTMENTS ON YOUR FEMININE FOLLOWERS' HAIR SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. A SUITABLE ENCHANTMENT WOULD BE THE POLYJUICE TRACKER FROM ALPHONSE REGULUS BLACK'S 'A STUDY OF COUNTERMEASURES TO ALCHEMY', A COPY OF WHICH CAN BE FOUND IN THE LIBRARIUM RESTRICTED SECTION.

AS YOU'RE PROBABLY NOW WONDERING WHY, I'LL ELABORATE.

CERTAIN PERSONS OF BREEDING INTEND TO ACQUIRE SAMPLES OF HAIR FROM ALL YOUR ASSORTED FEMALE SERVANTS, ABDUCT SOME MUDBLOODS FROM HOUSES HUFFLEPUFF AND RAVENCLAW, APPLY SOME POLYJUICE POTION TO THE SITUATION, HAVE A PARTY OF A NATURE YOU CAN SURELY ASCERTAIN, THEN ALTER A FEW MEMORIES TO AVOID THE STAFF BECOMING EXCITABLE.

I BELIEVE YOU NEED TO KNOW.

-/-

"What the Hell?" she said, and handed it to Harry.

"Careful." Harry warned, likewise having a quick read before tucking the note into an available pocket, unearthing a tricorder, and running it over Hermione's hand. "There's all sorts of unpleasant stuff that can be put on paper – contact poisons, anthrax, that sort of thing. Well, looks like we're okay this time, just be more careful in future, okay?"

"Paranoia much?" Neville remarked.

"It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you." Harry said, starting to distribute his equipment round his half of the desk; after a moment of thinking what that letter had meant and getting a really bad feeling about it, Hermione followed suit.

"Who do you think that is?" she asked.

"Not sure, but I've got a few theories. We'll talk about that later once I've checked out a few details." Harry told her, shrugging one shoulder. "Reckon I'll warn the Puffs and Claws to be on alert." He failed to notice the expression Padma and Luna gave each other at that point, but Hermione chanced to be looking in the right direction.

"Any idea why Luna and Padma reacted like that?" she asked, sotto voiced and making sure her back faced the duo in question.

"Like what?" Harry muttered.

"They gave each other a weird look, like... like I don't know what."

"Hmm." Harry glared at his cauldron as if it had messed with his guns. "I don't know, but I intend to find out."

"How're you going to do that?"

"Well, I've suddenly realised I've got a hot date with the Patil twins tonight. Helps that both of them like being unexpectedly kidnapped and ravished."

"Pervert."

"So?"

Hermione still hadn't figured out a suitable answer for that, and so she didn't reply – especially when Snape came crashing in the door with a look on his face like he'd just found a dead rat in his underwear drawer.

"So," the greasy-haired one hissed, "We begin second-year alchemy. Do any of you blithering idiots perhaps know what that means...? No...? IT MEANS I ONLY HAVE ANOTHER TWO YEARS OF YOUR BLUNDERING TO TOLERATE!"

He whirled round, having strode clean across the room.

"Of course, you shall all undoubtedly fail come end of third year; you are all unutterable poltroons and I shall be delighted to see you all permanently ejected from this class. You are ignorant idiotic inbred imbeciles and it shall most assuredly be my delight to CRUSH any misplaced enthusiasm for a subject you absolutely fail to comprehend!"

He hove to in front of Harry and Hermione's desk, and looked Hermione straight... well, not in the eye.

He was looking at the end of her nose.

"Especially you, yo-/Y/y-YOu m/Mu-Mu-Mu/uud/BL/bl/Bl/ooood/ood-ood."

Harry drew in a breath, held it for a few moments, then let it out in an enormous explosive sigh, nicely punctuating the blank silence as everyone in the room stared at Snape, trying to work out what exactly the weird disjointed mode of speech was about.

"Okay, that does it." he said.

"I be/E/eg your/OUR par/AR/ar-ardon, Mist/IST/ist/GLRPH!" Snape said. He hadn't planned on ending it quite like that, but a bunch of knuckles got in the way; the back of his skull contacted the blackboard with an audible thunk as Harry surged upright and powered the alchemy master clean across the room.

"You just reached your limit." Harry informed him. "I was going to go easy on you this year because I worked out a few home truths, but you just had to push me, didn't you? Now, I strongly suggest you look up the meaning of what my Hermione's got written on her collar, and when you find it, you'll understand why I can get away with saying – so much as raise your voice to her again, one little snide remark, one repetition of the M-word, and I will break every bone in a certain body. Got it?" He took his fist out of Snape's mouth.

"You're going to regret that, Johnson." Snape bluntly stated. "Class dismissed, now GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Harry nodded, put Snape's head through the blackboard, and walked out, rapidly followed by the rest of the CTMA.

Glancing over her shoulder at the tangle of rail-thin body and robes sticking out of the ruins of the blackboard, Hermione found herself wondering exactly why the grease-haired bastard had looked oddly grateful from somewhere near the end of Harry's mini-rant.

And what, for that matter, was with the whole sounding-like-a-halfway-crashed-AI thing?

* * *

After spending the rest of the morning chilling out on the castle lawn, and having had lunch, the next class on the schedule was of course assault magecraft, wherein Gilderoy Lockhart – a handsome blond character with impeccable clothes and a smarmy grin that set Hermione's nerves on edge – proceeded to hand round questionnaires.

Said questionnaires proved to be full of things about one subject, and it wasn't how to blow things up. Everything was personal details about their author; what kind of size of an ego did this guy have anyway?

Just as Hermione was trying to figure out what, if any, impact Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour might have on the Destructive Arts, a peculiar (not to mention spine-chilling) harmonic buzz-click sounded from somewhere in the region of Draco Malfoy.

The response of Harry, pretty much every Kenti in the room, and several others, was downright electrifying and resulted in nearly a third of the class just about hitting the ceiling; in fact, several of them pulled the biggest guns they had available – in Harry's case, this meant his outrageously massive Kenti anti-satellite rifle. The clicks, snaps, ker-chunks and crunches of weapons being readied created two seconds of cacophony followed quite promptly by one of those silences that are way, way too quiet.

"Interesting." Malfoy said, making the word sound like it was dirty and might contaminate his mouth.

"Drop the fucking powerbow or I'll blow you into a deep pan pizza." Harry spat.

"Not a powerbow, Johnson." Malfoy replied, holding up a handheld voxcatcher – effectively a very high-tech tape recorder – and Hermione abruptly realised that the blonde boy, although incredibly pissed off, for once wasn't directing his anger at the CTMA.

"And what, precisely, was that intended to attain?" S'tarak'hai rumbled. "Aside, I might note, from almost causing you to be filled with projectiles by half the persons in this room."

Draco dropped the voxcatcher on his desk and stood up.

"I and Father," he grandly proclaimed, or at least it sounded like an attempt to sound grand, "Detected a few, shall we say, inconsistencies in your volume concerning Garg's Landing, Professor Lockhart. So we arrived at a little, shall we say, test." The superior look vanished; the rage was back. "Johnson provided an adequate demonstration of how anyone who was on Shenth responds to hearing a Deladarian landwarrior's powerbow activate; you, I might note, failed to recognise the sound. You, sir, are a sham and a fraud and I wish to advise you to contact your solicitors at once; you are shortly about to be sued for libel and defamation of character."

There was a long pause, and Lockhart finally let out a sigh, tapping his spell focus – a very old-school wand – against the palm of his off hand.

"I suppose one could put it that way." he mused. "But what matter? People need heroes, and good-looking ones such as myself sell more books than some freak like that disgustingly ugly Gnoll. Indeed, I was never within five hundred lights of Shenth; memory modification is such a useful thing to a successful author. In which vein, you're all unfortunately going to have to forg-"

"I'm wired and Father is listening with great interest, Mr Lockhart; I wouldn't do anything foolish if I were you." Draco interrupted. By this time, Harry's obnoxiously huge gun was aimed at the end of Lockhart's nose.

A telephone chose that moment to ring from the direction of Lockhart's pocket.

"Answer the phone, Professor." Draco ordered, and after several long and hesitant seconds the man did so.

"Gilderoy speaking, I'm a little-" he started, and then cut off, rather abruptly going a strange shade of puce; this caused the room to go quiet enough for everyone to catch the tail end of Draco's father's voice, bellowing something incensed-sounding about lawyers.

The entire class watched, somewhat startled aside from the rather smug Malfoy, as Lockhart fled the room.

"Intriguing." S'tarak'hai eventually rumbled.

"Lucuis Malfoy, I suggest you turn your hook-up off as at the count of zero I'll be activating a white-noise generator." Harry stated. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. Enjoy your burst eardrums."

"Father requests I inform you that he is no fool; he has disabled the receiver at his end of the loop." Draco snottily informed him.

"For your part, you've got about thirty seconds to explain why the Hell you give a damn about Garg's before I lose my temper and you take a one-way trip out that window." Harry replied, in his entirely-too-calm voice.

"My uncle Caligula Black – Mother's younger and only brother – took the Garg's gangrene meds on the sixty-second day of the siege." Draco snapped, glowering back. "A woman you likely know – one Motoko Kusanagi – filled Father and I in on the details two years ago, and we do not appreciate individuals such as that vermin casting slurs on our kin."

"... I see. Didn't know Caligula was from that Black family." Harry admitted.

"Even with your much-vaunted leg-work?"

"Malfoy, I'm trying to be nice here, therefore just so you know, someone who died fighting on the same side as me before I learned about leg-work or intel isn't exactly top of my research list."

"I see." Draco said. "Johnson, you recognised my uncle's name, didn't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, I knew him. Poor bastard was my platoon commander when we were sent in. Hell, I can't say I ever much liked Caligula, but I sure as Hell respected him, we all did – the creep was the only Rupert in the city – least as far as I knew – who didn't need a map to find his own arse, it was easy to tell he'd been shot at before, and he treated any of his squaddies getting wasted out there as a personal insult on the part of the enemy. He was a sleazy short-arsed bastard with manners like a retailer of somewhat questionable used cars but God that man could lead; if he'd told us Hell needed blown up, we'd have said give us some bombs and tell us how the fuck we get there. He led from the front, understand? Poor bastard tripped a booby-trap while he was leading us into the compound Niko Sanders' body was in. It took his legs off at the knees, a lot of shite got into the injuries, you couldn't get disinfectant for love nor money... tough little bastard. He clung on for a month; by the time he asked us to load a slugger up and leave it at his disposal he was so weak he was struggling to lift his own arms. Last order he gave me was to look out for his lads."

Malfoy nodded, his impassive mask slipping slightly.

"That sounds like Uncle Caligula." he said, sounding sad.

"Caligula was a creepy little bastard but he deserves the people he cared about knowing someone remembers."

"You realise that this doesn't change anything?"

"You Malfoys always were bloody-minded little bastards. That's what made us follow your uncle and that's what got his legs blown off in some miserably heap of muddy rubble on some Godforsaken dirtball fighting for a cause nobody ever believed in anyway. I'd like to be able to tell you he died for a good reason, but that'd be doing the little bastard a disservice; he died for no fucking reason at all."

"I've known that much for a while; for what it's worth, thankyou." Draco said, and made his departure, his cohorts in tow.

Harry watched him go for a long moment, and then shook his head.

"... Well, strike one off the list of things that'll never happen." he said.

"Two, actually." Ron told him, sounding absolutely gobsmacked. "You and Malfoy agreed about something and he thanked you."

"Hmm, yeah. Strike two off the list of things that'll never happen."

A throat-clearing noise in Dumbledore's voice boomed over the school P.A.

"Ahem. This is a public announcement to all Collegium students. Assault Magecraft classes have been cancelled for the time being as our Assault Magecraft tutor has unexpectedly been dismissed by the Board of Directors. Thankyou for your attention."

"Huh, Draco's dad worked fast on that one." Ron mused.

"Are you seriously telling me you're surprised? He's got enough money to have Fudge in his back pocket any time he wants, and we all know who funds and ultimately runs this pile of rocks." Harry said, shrugging. "It's fortunate I've got enough money to block old mono-bollock most of the time. Just so happens that for once I have absolutely no problem with what he wants."

"You have something planned, do you not?" one of the Kenti students, whom Hermione didn't know offhand, remarked; it fairly obviously wasn't asked as a question.

"Oh, just need to slip an old buddy of mine – feller by the name of Daniel Newcombe – a tip about the channel for that tracker beacon I planted in Lockhart's breakfast. Duke doesn't take kindly to little girly men telling porkies about Hell; I predict the difference between a windpipe and a karzi becoming moot."

"Um, anyone care to explain what just happened?" Susan Bones asked, having come marching over to where the CTMA were clustered.

"Lockhart stepped in some past history of mine, kid." Harry told her. "Look up the Siege of Shenth if you want the details, but I suggest you only consume water for a couple days before you study too closely – some of the file images from that hellhole have been known to make people physically sick. Seems Malfoy's mother is closely related to someone who didn't make it out, and seems his old man took Lockhart's bullshit more personally than I'd have expected all things considering; I may have to re-evaluate some theories."

"... oh."

* * *

With the Snape-showdown and mayhem with Lockhart and Malfoys over, it came as a great relief when the rest of the day went smoothly. Cybermancy with the Munching Hamster was just business as usual; at the end of that, the CTMA got together for dinner and retired to the Gryffindor hangout, where they split out into the usual small nattering groups and Harry found himself seated alone at a table as he proceeded to, aided by laptop and thick pile of dossiers, collate information about the Malfoy and Black families in general and Caligula Black in specific. He hadn't known Caligula was a suspected Death Eater, but in hindsight it made a nasty kind of sense.

It didn't take long for him to receive an interruption in the form of Eiko Kent, whom he'd been meaning to have a word with, asking, "Hey, what's the story with assault magecraft? I heard your year were in that when Dumbledore did that announcement."

"Lockhart pissed off people who don't like libel." Harry said with a shrug, momentarily admiring her petite form where she was leaning on the back of a chair the other side of his laptop – good looking kid, though where she'd inherited the red hair was anyone's guess, both her parents (if he had this right) had jet-black hair. Hmm, was it natural? Finding out could be fun, he'd heard Kryptonians were great in bed – nah, he didn't need any Men of Steel pissed off about someone messing with their daughters. "See, the Major in command of my platoon at Garg's – creepy little rat-faced bastard called Caligula Black – turns out to have been Draco Malfoy's maternal uncle and seems neither rat-face junior or senior much liked the crap Lockhart said about the poor bastard. It's weird – never thought I'd find myself agreeing with that particular family."

"... er..."

"Caligula was a sleazy little creep." Harry continued. "Oily bastard with manners like a used slave salesman. He was also one of the best damn officers I've ever worked under; got mixed feelings about the guy. And the Garg's Landing gangrene meds were not a coward's way out, no matter what anyone says – fuck, that was the only way those poor bastards could go out with some dignity."

"... do I want to know what that means?" she asked.

"Probably not; let's just say it was one of the occasions where the only thing you can do for someone is give them a loaded weapon and some privacy. It's one of the very few situations where I won't say one bad word about suicide; if someone's rotting alive they've every right to put a gun to their temple and squeeze the trigger." The kid didn't need to know the details; she'd have less trouble sleeping that way.

"... oh." Eiko said, looking somewhat crestfallen as she sat down.

"Yeah; about all there is to be said about it. Hey, you're the daughter of Clark Kent and Diana Prince, aren't you?"

"Well, so?" she asked.

"As in, Superman and Wonder Woman."

"There aren't many people who remember that these days. Not since the tabloids found something else to pitch a fit about."

"Don't give me that, girl. Knowing who's who is a survival technique in my line of work, and you can bet your last pair of cotton socks security agencies are going to keep tabs on powerhouses like your parents. And anyway, your father is the finest man I've ever had the honour of shooting at. "

"Wait, what, why?" She obviously hadn't been expecting that. Poor bloody kid would learn.

"This terrorist called Luthor needed killed. Clark turned into a real boy-scout type a while back – hell, he always had those tendencies – and he tried to stop me. Wasn't gonna do anything permanent to the big lunk, but I had to put him on his ass long enough to stop him getting in the way while I sprayed Luthor's brain across the wall. Let's just say I haven't exactly been on your old man's Christmas card list since then."

"... that sounds like Dad. But, look, why'd you have to kill that Luthor guy anyway?" Poor bloody naïve kid.

"Which part of terrorist don't you understand? The bastard was an out-and-out mass-murderer and the Yank government was paying me to pull the trigger on him. Believe me, kid, there ain't a jail on the planet could hold Lex Luthor for long, bastard busted out of Alcatraz so often the damn place might as well have had a revolving door – the only way to stop that son-of-a-bitch murdering a few hundred people every couple years was to put a bullet in his skull. Your old man has this thing about killing; he simply will not do it and I can't say I'm surprised after the shit he went through the last time. Me, I believe in making sure the job stays done and to Hell with what the tabloids think; sometimes the only way to stop some bastard for good is a little bit of high-speed metal to the cranium."

"... oh." God, was she naïve. He'd thought Hermione had problems that way.

"Yeah, something like that. Look, don't get me wrong, kid – your parents are good people and they do a hell of a lot of good work. Hell, your dad and Steve Rogers are the primary reason the Wunderwaffen program didn't turn the war in Hitler's favour; but then, the war and what happened to poor bloody Lois were what made Clark so adamant about the whole not-kill thing. And someone's got to finish the job. If that someone's me, well, it'd take more than a Man of Steel to stop me picking up my paycheck."

"Lois? You mean Lois Lane? Dad's got a photograph of her on our mantelpiece, but he's never talked about her... what happened?"

Harry sadly shook his head. He'd only heard about that one second hand, but he'd seen some of the images and they were among the least pretty things he'd ever seen.

Real waste. That Lane bird was cute, and hardly anyone deserved that sort of shit.

"I'm not gonna tell you that; it's none of my damn business and you'll have less trouble sleeping if you don't know. Let's just say the Joker got her, and by the time they managed to get her out, kindest thing they could have done for her would have been a bullet to the head. It... wasn't pretty, it's a mercy she didn't last long after that. Your dad's never been the same since, and I can't say I'm surprised; most people would've kamikazed after seeing that kind of shit happen to someone they love."

"... who's the Joker?" Eiko asked.

"Last man your father ever killed." Harry explained. "Terminal psychotic with a sadistic streak a mile wide, and let's just say he was an even worse attention whore than Clark was in the Thirties. The Joker was Batman's biggest problem during the Sixties, but after the Bat got his back broken in, what, '71, the Joker started looking for someone else to try to get under the skin of. He settled on your father, and... yeah, I can't say I'm surprised Clark went balls-to-the-wall. Half the guys I've known who had to watch a loved one going through something like that ate a gun barrel, and the other half went off the rails bigtime; instant thousand-yard stare and itchy trigger finger, ever heard of the Punisher or Darth Blade? As for Clark... I've never seen anyone hold it together so well before or since, and I'm pretty sure it's thanks to your mother."

He shook his head again.

"It's a shame nobody arranged a quiet 'killed while attempting to escape' for the Joker before the bastard got his hands on poor bloody Lois. Jesus, he'd worked out who Clark was and was mailing him tapes of what he was doing to her, and anyone who says that when Clark made sure that fuck never hurt anyone ever again he was doing something wrong, well, they deserve to have their bollocks introduced to a rusty angle-grinder. Murder? Like fuck. The term's 'payback'. If I'd known at the time I would've helped hold that sick fuck down for your old man."

"... you like Dad, don't you?" Huh; smarter than she made out.

"Yeah, I do." Harry shrugged; no harm in people knowing the truth about that. "First off he's about the closest there is to a good man left in this galaxy, and second off he's the reason a few of my people are still breathing; he ever told you about Oceanic 241?"

"Wasn't that an airliner that lost it's engines somewhere near New York in, what, oh man, about 1972?" Eiko checked, her memory proving itself not to be too shabby.

"December 1st '71 actually, and it was about eight hundred miles offshore from the Big Apple. Your old man got that plane down in one piece, and I must admit the only reason I took any notice was because five of my Jews were on that plane – Uzi Hertzl, he was a good kid, lucky bastard died in his sleep of being old four years back, his wife Anne Feinstein, she's still kicking, and their kids, they were coming home from Europe after showing the truth to their youngest – her name's Diane Rosenberg these days, she married into the Californian branch of the Rosenbergs in '78, her husband's a snot-nosed punk but their daughter's a real sweetheart – that trip was her introduction to just what the Hell I got her parents out of – and I know for damn sure that jet would not have made it to dry land on it's own, the piece of shit who sabotaged it really knew what he was doing though I still haven't worked out who or why. When I owe someone..." Harry shook his head. "Doesn't matter who or what they are, when I owe someone I do not forget. Clark's an over-optimistic fool, but hell, sometimes all it takes to make the world a bit less of a shitty place is one stubborn bone-head with big ideas. Especially," and he gave Eiko his best boy-scout smile, "When said stubborn bone-head is a Kryptonian with a hero complex."

"A stubborn Kryptonian bone-head with a hero complex." Eiko mused, grinning a bit. "I get the feeling I should be insulted right now but that's actually a pretty good description of Dad... and if you replace Kryptonian with Themiscyraenan it describes Mum pretty well too."

"Yeah, I know." Harry agreed; the description suited Diana Prince too, right enough. "I've known of your parents for quite a while, and... man, there's a hell of a lot of shit I know they've been through and I know I haven't got all the facts, yet somehow they still keep their ideals alive and kicking. I think they're completely fucking crazy, but a guy's got to respect the kind of strength of conviction they've got going."

"Dad's never talked about how Lex Luthor died." Eiko told him. "But I do know it happened in 1979 right before that whole thing with Mum and Dad's identities getting revealed by the gutter press. You say you've owed Dad since 1971. How come you shot at him in 1979?" Yeah. Naïve. Poor bloody kid.

"Kid, the reason I used a sonic stunner is because I owe Clark. If I didn't, you wouldn't be here today – I have kryptonite bullets and let me tell you, the only other time a Kryptonian got in the way of me finishing a job? Let's just say, when your old man's cousin Kyn-El decided to keep a package that belongs elsewhere, I sent him home in a body-bag."

"... you'd kill over some piece of junk? What kind of person are you anyway?"

"The package in question was a nine-year-old girl." Harry remarked, giving Eiko a hard stare. "She's now safe at home and thirteen. Still think I'm a bastard, Kent?"

"... why'd you just say 'package' then?" Fuck, she didn't know a damn thing about mercs. Welcome to the real galaxy, kid. Ain't war hell?

"When I'm hired to recover something, doesn't matter if it's someone's favourite spork or a kidnapped princess – I'm there to collect a package and anything that tries to stop me gets a short sharp shock." Harry told her. "I'm not a mercenary thief, I'm a mercenary gunman; hell of a difference. When clients hire guys like me, they are not fucking around. Clients don't hire a gunman to sneak into someone's office and pinch a document – they hire a thief for that kind of job. What they hire a gunman for is to kick the door in, shoot anything that moves, then climb out the rubble with the document. It's like the difference between calling the local coppers and sending in the Special Air Service. Hiring someone like me is a statement that anyone who screws my client around would be best to dig themselves a hole and lay in it to wait for the bullet. Think that sounds harsh? Kid, do yourself a favour and stay on Earth. The galaxy would eat you alive."

"I'm not a pushover, Johnson." Naïve, naïve, naïve. If she was very very lucky she'd never need to worry about it, but he'd better warn the poor bloody kid – she was cute, it'd be a real waste seeing her blown away on some miserable dirtball out there.

"And wherever you go, whatever you do, you are one kryptonite bullet away from filling a box in a hole. It doesn't matter how big and bad you are, hell, it doesn't matter how big and bad anyone is – there is always going to be something bigger and badder out there. I've been careful and I've got lucky a hell of a lot of times but the fact remains that sooner or later my luck is going to run out, maybe I'll get in the way of a lascannon, I don't know but it'll happen somehow some time. Every bullet that bounces off my subdermal armour brings the one that kills me one bullet closer, understand? There's only one thing that'll stick around forever, kid, and that's a certain skeleton with a scythe and Harley. Death's got your number, your dad's number, your mum's number, my number – everyone's number, and nobody can dodge the reaper's calls forever. I don't know where and I don't know when, but we are going to die. We're going to feed the worms. There's only one certainty in life, and that is that there is an end to it. And besides... what the Hell kind of lunatic wants to live forever in this shit-hole anyway?"

"People who're in love?" Eiko tried and failed.

"No." Harry said, glancing at where Hermione was locked deep in a discussion with Tara. "People who are in love want to die before the one they love; I sure as Hell stinks wouldn't want to live in a galaxy without her, and the last thing I want is to be forced to give her some full-metal-jacket painkillers."

"It won't come to that, Harry." Eiko said, giving him a shock as the conversation abruptly diverged from where he'd expected. How in the name of fuck did this naïve kid understand exactly what full-metal-jacket painkillers – an euphemism for a merciful bullet to the brainpan– meant? And...

"What makes you think you can say that for sure?"

"Come on, man. My dad's Superman and my mum's Wonder Woman. Heroing is in my blood, and you're someone who'd get Jews out of Nazi Germany just because you could; what kind of a superhero wouldn't muck in to help?"

Harry tipped his head back, staring off through the ceiling and into forever as he spent a moment ruminating on that.

He knew Clark and Diana would probably never trust him, and neither would their daughter if she had any sense. Not that he blamed them – he didn't trust himself. Oh no, he knew himself way too well for that.

But he also knew that Clark and Diana were people he could trust with his homeworld's safety, and the same likely went for their daughter. Diana Prince was a dyed-in-the-wool Themiscyraean Amazon and Clark was an honest hard-working north Texas* farmboy; both of them were good people and they would definitely have made very sure their child didn't go bad.

Fuck it.

"Kid... reckon you're okay. Just one thing? If Hermione dies and I go off the rails, help Ben and Catboy put me down. I am a Sith Lord; I have to be in complete control of myself at all times or the Dark Side will be in control of me, and if that happens, it won't be me in here any more; it'll be a rabid animal that will have to be stopped on a permanent basis. Believe me on this one kid, there is almost no chance of coming back from Force psychosis. Only people who've ever managed are Lord Revan and Lord Vader, and those two old bastards are a darn sight stronger-willed than Yours Truly. If it comes to that, don't give me a second chance; you'd be doing me a favour."

"You're serious about that, aren't you?" Poor naïve kid.

"Deadly. You're a Kryptonian-Themiscyraean hybrid, kid; you're one of the vanishingly small number of people in this galaxy who could stop me dead in my tracks if I went off the rails. I've said the same thing to Duke Nukem, Ben Chaos and his dad, Catboy and his dad, Queen Rialia, and a Bolo named Kali the Destroyer; the last thing this galaxy needs is me going psychotic and I am scared shitless that Hermione dying would send me over the edge. I've never told her and I probably never will, but... fuck, why is this so hard to say?"

"She's worth the world to you, isn't she?" Perceptive naïve kid.

"For Hermione? The biker's brat from Stockton with the aura that shook the world?" Harry let out a low laugh. "I'll make this a universe worthy of having her in it or I'll die trying; for Hermione, let the galaxy _burn_."

"You're in love."

"I know."

"Harry mate," Ben Chaos said, sitting down beside the mercenary, "You've been listening to the bloody Sororitas too much."

"I like the Bitches of Battle; you always know where you stand with those pyros." Harry said, shrugging as he fondly remembered Mother Anaria. According to Setsuna, that rock-hard old Martian bitch was still alive somewhere out there, and he'd be glad to see the old psychopath again; she was good people.

"Why haven't you told her?" Eiko asked.

Harry gave her a steady look. Fuck, she didn't know. Prepare to have your innocence shattered on a permanent basis, kid.

"She is completely under my control." he said. "She's incapable of disobeying me; if anything happens, she'll be the one to initiate it. There are lines I do not ever cross, and that is one of them. Like to know what happens to rapists I catch up with? Put it this way, if I used the compulsion I planted in her head to get into her pants I'd have to cut my own balls off with a rusty hacksaw, crucify myself, and flambé myself in jet fuel, and that's not exactly on my to-do list for this millennium. Get my drift?"

"You're a strange guy." Eiko said.

"Goes with the territory, kid. Goes with the territory. Hmm, looks like Hermione's finished up with Tara; I'm going to make a move."

"Okay." Eiko confirmed. Sounded thoughtful. That was good – she needed to get the mind behind those pretty blue eyes working. Sooner she got herself clued up the less of a chance he'd have to bale her out.

Poor bloody kid.

"Catch ya later, Harry mate." Ben said.

Harry nodded, and swiftly arrived beside Hermione, who had just got done stuffing her laptop into it's bag.

"I'm heading for my room." he told her. "Coming?"

"Yeah," she said, distracted and quite unaware that she'd just followed that intriguing little compulsion of hers.

She was so bloody trying some times. When in the Hell was she going to figure out that he was just as gone on her as she was on him?

Entertained by the image of things involving chains, nudity and Hermione, he slouched off towards his digs with her following.

At least he'd be able to unwind a bit when the Puma twins got back from their current mission. Hopefully she'd decide to join in with the fun.

Feh, he should be so lucky.

* * *

"So... I've got the gist of what you and my mate Harry were talking about, shiela, and I reckon I could do with knowing if he asked you to help me and Catboy if he looses it." Ben bluntly asked. He was still seated opposite Eiko at the table recently vacated by Harry.

"He said something like that, yeah." She confirmed. "Something about, well, killing him?"

Ben let out a low whistle.

"You realise the bloke trusts you, don't you?"

"How can he trust me? I mean, he's hardly met me!"

"Because of who your parents are, sweetheart. Your folks are two of the very few cobbers our Harry trusts to take care of this planet, and from a bloke like Harry who has difficulty trusting himself with a dud dollar, that's saying something. It's something all sensible Force adepts do; arrange for someone to take 'em out of they loose the plot. Comes with the bleedin' territory. Hey, incidentally, I'd like to ask you for the same favour as Harry."

"... what?"

"I'm a Jedi Knight, sheila. Only thing standing between me and turning into a terminal psychotic is the Light Side; both me and Harry are walkin' high-wires here and there's something way worse'n crocs underneath. If I loose it, help Dad and Harry put me down. You'd be doing me a favour."

"This is getting a bit intense."

"Force psychosis is an intense bloody subject, sheila, and that's no bloody mistake. Peeps who don't train to keep it under control turn into wankers like Lucius bleedin' Malfoy, peeps who fuck up turn into wankers like bleedin' Palpatine, and I can count the peeps who've come back from either on the fingers of one hand and I ain't even gotta use 'em all. Who knows if I'd be able to pull me head out me arse if I lost it? Frankly, I don't want to have to find out. Do yourself a favour and don't get too close to blokes like me and Harry; you may have to put down what's left of us one day."

* * *

As she sat on Harry's bed, the cybermantic code manual she'd taken as extra study for the course in her hands and Harry's head on her lap again, Hermione couldn't help but wonder why he was, in addition to fiddling with his laptop, quizzing her about what she did and didn't like about her H&K.

She'd only ever fired what, six different guns? It was hard to say what she thought could be improved; the H&K was so familiar it might as well have been an extension of her body, and she was briefly nonplussed by this realisation.

He was just getting onto the subject of rearsights when a knock sounded at the door; he immediately aimed an E-Mag thataway and shouted, "Come in."

The knockee proved to be Albus Dumbledore.

"Ah, I was half-expecting you." Harry continued, putting the gun away and resuming looking up at Hermione. "What's the story?"

"I wish to discuss your problem with Severus Snape and the ramifications of such." the elderly man said, causing Harry's head to whip back round as the weredragon levelled a flat unimpressed stare at the headmaster.

"I _don't_ have a 'problem' with Snape. The 'problem', as you so eloquently put it, is entirely... a certain person's. You know, you might want to check him for illicit hardware." What the Hell did that mean?

"Severus has my trust."

"Then you're a damn fool. If you think you know who's driving there, I assure you, you do not." Again, what the Hell?

"... I beg your pardon?"

"Have I got to spell it out? He's rigged. Not sure about the vector, but he's definitely rigged." Double what-the hell.

"... and exactly what that means, I can but guess."

With that, Dumbledore left.

Harry stared after the old man with this semi-disbelieving look on his face.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Hermione asked. She didn't ask the other pressing question, the one about what the Hell was going on.

"... well, I can think of three possibilities." Harry told her, sitting up. "First off, could be that the old fart's going senile. Second off, could be he was dropped on his head when he was a baby. And third off... well, maybe he's trying to out-Machiavellian Luna, though if that's the case I can't say what his game is. Disinformation, probably, though it could easily be deeper."

"Out-Machiavellian Luna?" Hermione asked, once again what-the-fucked.

"Yup. Within the cranium of that inoffensive little blonde lurks a mind with more twists and turns than a truckload of corkscrews, I started getting a handle on it roundabout the incident with Quirrel, let's just say I'm only just getting an angle on what her game is, and oh boy am I impressed."

Hermione was about to ask exactly what in the Hell that meant and, for that matter, exactly what the hell 'rigged' meant, when a rattle sounded from outside the window; instead of pulling a gun, Harry twitched that sort of a way then smirked slightly.

"Ah, it's about time they got back."

"... what?"

The answer was provided by the Puma twins coming climbing through the window. Each Puma twin was carrying an aggressively gagged-and-chained, not to mention blindfolded-and-earplugged, Patil twin.

Harry smirked at Hermione's expression.

"This'll be fun. Do you want to stay and watch?" he asked.

"No, I'll just be going." Hermione said, half-noticing how disappointed he immediately looked as she got up and headed for the door.

As soon as his door was closed, she leaned against the wall beside it, struggling to work out what had her simultaneously excited, annoyed, frustrated, freaked out, keen to stay, and desperate to leave.

"... Men."

"Can't live without 'em, can't get a trade-in on 'em. What's that expression for?" Tara had just come ambling up the hall.

"Oh, it's just Harry being Harry again." Hermione told her. This was, after all, exactly what she'd expect of him.

"I've got beer; wanna go get blitzed?" Tara offered, immediately perceiving everything her room-mate hadn't said.

"What, on a Monday night?"

"Well, I've got hangover-killers too, and timed wake-up draughts."

"... okay, sounds good." Hermione said.

A muffled squeak from the other side of a certain door hastened her on her way.

* * *

Laying on his bed between a pair of thoroughly blissed-out, interrogated, Obliviated and re-blissed (not to mention currently trussed up to the point of absolute helplessness) Patils, Harry found himself glaring blankly at the ceiling and being aggravated with Hermion.

"Goddamn it." he muttered. "Just what the Hell kind of unsubtle come-on is she going to take?"

He didn't get an answer; Carla would have tried to provide one as would two certain catgirls, but Harry was the only one currently in the room who wasn't gagged and artfully immobilised.

"Oh well," he continued, "Gonna be fun finding out."

Then he went back to musing on what he'd just learned about Ravenclaws.

He had reasons to believe there were only two exceptions to their bastarditude, one being Luna and the other being Padma. There were probably more – how do you identify the shrinkwrapped meatball in a heap of shrinkwrapped turds anyway?

Fuck 'em, his old friend Ma Deuce would make sure they had the right idea, that was what she did best; one does not argue with Ma Deuce, or her cousin Barrett for that matter. A lovely lady of her statuesque figure couldn't help but impress, and he trusted her opinion when it came to who was bastard and who was warrior, who was bitch and who was sweetheart – the half-inch grand dame had known how to cut to the core of a disagreement and define where everyone stood since the day she first opened that riveting eye of hers.

And if her gaze didn't cut it, her voice sure as Hell would.

No regrets. Someone had fucked with his girls, and they were only due one warning before dear old Ma Deuce had to set things straight on a very permanent basis.

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – Well, if anyone hasn't worked out who Harry's old friend Ma Deuce is, they need to take five Janes All The Worlds' Machine Guns before bed and call me in the morning because, dude, missing that one is CRITICAL failure of machine-gun knowledge. And yes, he really does have as much of a gun fetish as it sounds like. Bear in mind that he's got a thing about Earther weapons and what he saw in the Mirror of Erised was guns.

Lots of guns...

'One does not argue with Ma Deuce or her cousin Barrett' is a direct quote of trboturtle2 on the EPU forums. It was fuckawesome and applicable.

* - Note that the supernatural and mundane borders of US states differ in Top Dog; a mundane would say Supes was from south-east Kansas. Details to be elaborated upon A) once finalised and B) when it comes up in-story.

Doghead Out.


	5. Chapter 4

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

* * *

_Take me down to the paradise city_

_Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty_

_Oh won't you please take me home..._

* * *

Shortly before breakfast the following morning, when Hermione cautiously poked her head into Harry's room, there was no sign of any Patils; Harry himself was sprawled on his bed, thoughtfully contemplating the handset for a subcomm system – a device much like a telephone but using subspace comms signals instead of phone lines, while Carla was sitting at the table quietly cleaning a gun; the Puma twins were lounging in the corner, seemingly not in the least bit bothered by the fact they were tethered by heavy-duty-looking chains running from their collars to an anchor point on the big ammunition safe.

"Morning." she said.

"Hmm? Oh, morning kiddo. C'mon in." he replied, thoughtfully tapping the subcomm on the matress.

"What's up?" she asked, sitting down on the bed beside him.

"Thinking." he said. "I should've made this call last night, but one thing led to another... when in the Hell am I going to be left in peace?" He glared at the phone. "Damnit, Deunan and Briaraeos, Slarka herself, that Enforcer, or...? Shit. Fuck. Who the fuck do I...?"

"What's the problem?" Hermione asked.

"Something that Lockhart bastard said. Only Gnoll who survived Garg's was a pack matriarch called Slarka Brol. Good old broad. She's living on a smallholding across the water from An Sleamhnaich these days. And I'm worried about her, about what that bastard said about memory charms."

"You think he mind-wiped this Slarka person, don't you?"

"Yeah kiddo, I do. Thing is... do I call her, have her talking to some freak on the comms, or do I talk to my buddies in the Skid Row cops? Not like that, kiddo; Deunan and Briareos made it out of Garg's alive with me and Slarka and the old gang. They aren't in touch much – Deunan and Bri are with Dachaigh Nuadh's ESWAT teams, Slarka's a country farmgirl who likes her solitude – but... they're loosely friend, right, and they're on the same planet at least. But, fuck it, I want to talk to her in person. Goddamnit."

"Well, it sounds like your cop friends – I never thought I'd say that – should be able to check before you've got time to go."

"... feh. True enough." and he thumbed a few buttons on the subcomm. "C'mon, answer the goddamn thing... Ah, hi Deunan... yeah I know what time it is, this is important... It's Slarka. Remember her?... yeah I know, stupid question... look, I'm worried about her, I'm not sure, I'm stuck on Earth, but I've got reasons to suspect she's been mindwiped... yeah, cool... yeah, thanks Deunan... yeah I can, but not for, what, three days your time... OK, willdo... Nah, Duke's chasing the bastard down... OK, yeah, I'll give him a heads up... OK, cool... yeah, later. You too."

* * *

**Disclaimer: Unable to fit disclaimer. Could not find crowbar.**

* * *

**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: One step forwards and another back.**

**(In which a truth or two outs.)**

An Sleamhnaich isn't exactly the most peaceful city in known space. The capital of Clanspace, it's administrated by representatives from every major Amerai Clan and is thus even more of a hotbed of espionage than Berlin at the height of the Cold War.

It's also the heaviest-armed city in the galaxy. There are more guns in An Sleamhnaic than there are people; for every sapient being who calls that city home, there are twenty and a bit guns somewhere in town, and many of them get used.

A lot.

It takes a literal army of heavily-armed cops to keep a lid on An Sleamhnaich's violent crime; at any one moment there are a minimum of fifty hostage situations going on in that city, there is a murder every seven seconds, an assault with grievous bodily harm every two and a half seconds, an armed robbery every twelve. There is no moment in time where there are not at least twenty-five high-speed chases in progress somewhere in that city, a city that gulps down over a million tons of controlled substances every day. Carjackings and muggings are rife in the bad parts of town – and the parts of town that can't be counted as 'bad' are few and far between.

Someone has to fight that city's rampant crime, and that someone is generally known as An Sleamhnaich Enforcement Brigade, also known (in the English-speaking part of town) as the Skid Row Police Department.

They are the galaxy's heaviest-armed, best-trained and best-paid cops.

At the forefront of their struggle are the city's twelve hundred SWAT teams – and at the absolute tip of that spear is the twenty-team elite known as Extra Special Weapons And Tactics.

ASEB SWAT in general use equipment that would be cutting-edge to any army in the galaxy. ESWAT are a cut above; simply put, they are the absolute finest men and women in ASEB, equipped with the absolute finest hardware (military or civilian) a functionally-unlimited budget can buy.

Most An Sleamhnaich cops retire after less than five years, many going on to safer jobs like Clanguard special forces or running the local police on a nice quiet backwater planet.

(Incidentally, one of the few things agreed on throughout the leadership of Clanspace is that nearly a full tenth of the galaxy's police chiefs having been trained to salute Commissioner Samuel Vimes is a good thing.)

The ranks of ESWAT are filled out by the people who stick at it long-term, and any of them will after three years have more combat experience than a retiring veteran of Her Radiant Majesty's First Legion; it takes a very special brand of lunatic to say, 'I don't know how I'd get by without people shooting at me every day', and when Lance-Enforcer Deunan Knute (ESWAT Team Six point element) said that, she wasn't joking.

That's the kind of crazy it takes to be an ESWAT cop in An Sleamhnaich.

That said, like any coppers in the galaxy, they expect (and get) time off.

For ESWAT, it's done in rotations. One shift on, two off, one full day in five off, one full week off after nineteen on.

And for ESWAT-6, that one full week off neatly coincided with the first week of the 1997-1998 Collegium year at Hogwarts on Earth.

First on the schedule was first morning of leave, a ritual involving the entire team hitting the cop bars in the Skid and getting blasted, with the following night spent recuperating at the copper in question's home; for Deunan Knute and her life-partner, ESWAT-6 marksman Briareos Hecatonchires, home was a nice apartment in a gated complex the nice side of town, about two hundred metres above the leading edge of the mining platform's skid mark on the Roadblock Mountain with a commanding view out over the city – a far cry from the blood-drenched ghetto called Humantown they'd both grown up in.

On most nights, you could pick out the orange flashing lights of police cruisers down in those waterfront slums from here. When it was especially clear, you could just see the scattered lights of crofting villages across the water from the city.

They'd been drunk as skunks the evening before last, made it home in one piece, and spent the intervening day lazing round the house doing nothing. They didn't have anything planned for the following few days before it was back to the war – neither liked planning holidays.

Both were unexpectedly and in fact rudely brought crashing awake when the subcomm phone rang.

"Deunan here." Deunan groaned, listened for a moment, and then growled, "What time do you call this, Sarge?"

That got Bri's attention. There was, after all, only one person anywhere whom Deunan called 'Sarge'.

"Okay, don't keep me in suspense... Course I do... So what's this about?... Serious? I'm on it... S'kay, she's onea us y'know?... Can you get over here?... Well come quick as you can... Any leads on our suspect?... Tell Duke if it's for real there'll be a bounty on this bastard, mindwipe's a serious crime on Dachaigh Nuadh... Good good; right, we'll get over her place at sundown... Catch you later, Sarge... take care now."

Deunan gave the subcomm a doubtful look, then tossed it onto the couch.

"What's up?" Briareos asked.

"That was the Sarge." Deunan told him."It's about Slarka Brol – remember her? He reckons someone's mindwiped her."

"Hmm..." Briareos glanced at the clock; three in the afternoon. With Dachaigh Nuadh's long and sweltering hot day and the way the city didn't wake up until nightfall, that was unreasonably early in anyone's books.

"You're right, we'll make tracks over to her croft at sundown." he said.

Deunan nodded and flopped back on her bed.

"Duke as in Newcombe?" Briareos checked.

"Yeah."

"Hope he doesn't get carried away. If Potter's right we'll be able to send the culprit down for life."

"Man, working on my day off..."

"Beats being a goddamn traffic cop."

"Yeah, and anyway this one's personal."

Their conversation petered out there, and it didn't take long for Deunan to doze back off.

Briareos, for his part, spent another two hours awake, gazing out over the city at the dark speck on the distant shore that marked the cluster of crofts where their old comrade-in-arms Slarka Brol lived, and thinking.

If the Sarge was right and someone had messed with a Garg's survivor's mind, there would be Hell to pay – he'd make damn sure of that much.

* * *

Like most elven species, cave elves – or, to give them their self-assigned title, Drow – are slow-growing. Pregnancy is a two-year proposition, and the resultant offspring takes around eighty standard years to reach full maturity.

Given that and the levels of violence inherit to their society it's likely fortunate for the Drow that A) their immune systems are exceedingly resilient to the point that child mortality very rarely happens for reasons other than violence, B) their fertility levels are prodigious to the point that unprotected sex is a sure-fire pregnanct, and C) their libidos are decidedly less than under control to the point of a species-wide undercurrent of nymphomania.

Otherwise, they'd almost certainly have managed to wipe themselves out long before they achieved spaceflight – and, from the perspective of just about anyone else in known space, it's a pity they didn't.

Bad reputation doesn't even start to describe it; in several empires, particularly elven space, they are marked shoot-on-sight as their civilisation (for want of a better word) is more insanely violent than the Amerai and they are almost universally xenophobic psychotics.

Those few who aren't make a point of living as far away from the Menzoberranzan cluster or elven space as possible. Some, such as the Zweilath family, take it to the point of moving several tens of millions of light years away by emigrating to New Australia.

For many New Aussie Drow, it works well. The tundracrawler communities beyond New Australia's slow-moving evening terminator are paradise to a cave elf; the wind is still warm from the planet's scorching sunside deserts, with the snows of iceside only starting well after you reach full darkness, and the nebula's purple glow, for sensitive cave-elven eyes, is a pleasant lighting level.

Of course, some such refugees don't make it, and the Zweilath family were one such case; their stolen, barely-operable starship gave out on them above New Australia's icy night, and the only survivor of the resulting wreck was their prepubescent daughter – though if you went to Valhalla and asked Mik and Dandra Zweilath, they'd have been satisfied with the result as said daughter was the entire reason they'd fled Menzoberranzan; she'd been selected for a child sacrifice and, unlike most cave-elven parents, they weren't having it.

She'd survived among the nomadic semi-amphibian natives for three standard years, sold from one tribe to another as a curiosity, until she'd taken a blow meant for one such tribe's chieftain and thus become a warrior in that tribe, and was then sent to live with one of the chieftain's old comrades-in-arms as iceside didn't agree with her cave-elven constitution; said old comrade-in-arms happened to be Grand Warlord Chaos, who'd adopted her, causing her to become yet another demonstration of his lifelong habit of taking in waifs and strays.

For Asari Chaos, seventy-two years old and thus for her species the equivalent of in her mid teens, being shipwrecked was like a bad dream that faded with the light of day, wiped out of her eyes as she woke up, back to the real world, back to her life – back to the still-unfamiliar wooden ceiling of the dorm room she now shared with Guinivere Weasley in the Gryffindor dormitory block of Hogwarts Collegium Arcanum on Earth – half a galaxy away from Menzoberranzan, a world she only vaguely remembered, and a barely-imaginable gulf of space away from the swamp-crawler in New Australia's morning band she'd grown up on or her staterooms aboard the self-propelled mining platform LSS-086 Weird Fish.

Her room-mate was already awake, she noted as she pushed herself upright; Ginny was sat at one of the pair of roll-top desks at one side of the room with writing kit out, and she snapped a red-covered book shut and slid it into a book-bag as soon as Asari sat up.

"Morning." She obviously wasn't used to the Drow girl yet, but that was okay – Asari wasn't used to not-New Aussie accents yet.

"Morning." Asari said, puzzling over why the red-haired Earther went a shade that matched her hair when Asari got out of bed. "We ain't got any assignments yet have we?"

"Huh? What, oh, that? It's just a diary. Uh, do you always sleep naked?"

"Well, yeah, everyone does sunside – it's too hot not to." Asari gave the thick Collegium-issue quilt a poke, pausing in the ever-important decision about what to wear today. "I thought this'd get really hot until I remembered what you call a flamin' scorcher here we'd call bloody cold."

Satisfied with her selection of apparel – one of her usual gowns, with a New Australian Army arctic-warfare jacket to go over the top of it, girl's got to keep warm and anyway, it was the jacket her platform tags were on, gotta trot the colours – Asari started getting herself dressed.

"You're from New Australia, aren't you? How hot does it get where you're from anyway?" Ginny asked.

Asari glanced at where she'd hung her thermometer on the wall. "Twenty-five Celsius... fuckin' hell, that's ten degrees below the coldest I've ever seen it at home – Dad didn't say I was signin' meself up for a frozen flamin' wasteland."

She shivered and hastened in getting that nice thick padded jacket on, ignoring the look she was getting from Ginny, who was clad in T-shirt and jeans.

"You're bonkers, we're in Scotland, this is warm." Ginny said.

"Nah, warm's about forty-eight to fifty in the shade. At sixty it's flamin' hot."

"I think I'd_ melt_ at sixty; reckon I'll keep Britain's climate just the way it is, thankyou very much." Ginny glanced at her watch. "Hey, I'm going for some breakfast; coming?"

"Hang on, hang on," Asari said, still finishing lacing her sandals up. "There, all done – let's go."

"If you think this is cold you're really going to need boots and trousers in a couple of months."

"I've got a pair of Maces model K's Ben gave me, but I'm not doing trousers. Stockings or maybe tights, okay. Not trousers, I don't do trousers, they're uncomfortable."

Ginny scoffed at that, and the two of them headed down towards the common room, arguing about clothes the whole way.

* * *

"Right," Harry said, giving the subcomm a dubious look and then tossing it onto his coffee table. "Well that's as far as I can take that one for now, next I gotta sort out the damn Ravenclaws and then maybe I can get five minutes rest."

"Harry, what's wrong with the Ravenclaws?" Hermione asked.

"Hmm? Oh. Yeah. You were right about Padma's reaction, kid. Yeah, I can't say I'm exactly best impressed right now, hell, I'm tempted to start mass-mailing letter bombs."

"... Harry, what've they been doing?"

"Ah, hell kid. I don't know all the details – I haven't been able to get my hands on any solid data. They're running some sort of hierarchy system in there, bit like the Slytherins before Ben changed the rules on 'em." Another frustrated sigh. "I, hell Hermione, I can't say I like not knowing what the Hell's going on, but the picture I'm getting isn't pretty. Some sort of cult-like setup protected by Unbreakables and what seems to be Fidelius-derived wards. I couldn't get much out of Padma, she'd been Obliviated and reversing it wasn't easy, and Luna's being uncommunicative, little cow claims I'll enjoy working it out."

"So... what _have_ you got, then?" Hermione asked.

"Padma's been 'excommunicated' for spending more time associating with 'outsiders' than doing scut-work for upper-year Claws. Luna's been 'excommunicated' for that and supposedly being 'unintelligent'."

"So exactly what's that mean?"

"Beyond the rest of the Claws pretending they don't exist any further than tampering with their property? I don't know yet." Harry sighed. "Y'know kiddo, I've got dirt on the Slytherins, I've got dirt on the Puffs, I've got dirt on the Claws. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. I'm starting to wonder what Gryffindor's dirty secret is."

"What's the Slytherins' and Hufflepuffs' dirty secrets, then?"

"Up until they got a spanner in the works in the form of a certain half-mad New Aussie Jedi Knight and his ditzy sister, the snakes had a strict rank system in place, almost militarised – each year got to boot the lower years around, prefects got to boot everyone around – and any snake who lost house points was responsible for regaining them on pain of pain. Non-purebloods couldn't advance in rank, of course, and anyone with the bad taste to be female ranked one below males. As for the Puffs, who do you think really runs this planet? Puffs are everywhere, they hear everything, and everyone seems to underestimate them. They're like an extended family, or maybe something that makes the Mafia look like Smurfs. There's a damn good reason nobody who knows anything fucks with the Puffs – I make a policy of giving 'em a ten percent discount, getting in that lot's good books is a good idea if you like assorted things such as being alive."

"Puffs. Dangerous. Are you serious?"

"What happens if you piss off a trained mage who's got about a thousand magi friends who'd jump in front of a missile barrage for him? You're lucky if you just end up looking like char-grille salsa. Look up the breakdown by Hogwarts house of deaths during Tommy-boy's bullshit; you'll find the Puffs barely got touched. Not a coincidence. They've got the sense to keep out the limelight, but if you go looking for powers behind thrones anywhere within a thousand lights of here, you're liable to find Puffs – and if you don't, you'll find Puffs angling for the job. Yeah, I've got a lot of time for those bastards – they keep quiet, they stick together, they never forgive, they never forget, and if you let 'em know you killed one of 'em they'll be after you for the rest of your life as they never, ever, give up." Harry shook his head. "Put it this way kiddo, if I hadn't needed to be in the same house as you I'd have gone for Hufflepuff like a shot – enough quiet self-effacing and shit-scary friends to crew a heavy frigate sounds like a really good plan to me."

"... huh." Hermione muttered. "Harry... why did you need to be in the same house as me?"

"Wasn't sure to start off with. Two people convinced me it was important. One of them's my manipulative little bitch of a daughter, and I'd shoot the other in the face if it wasn't that all that'd get me is a broken mirror. I didn't work out what the drill was until a certain troll-related incident, and I don't suppose you noticed my daughter's inability to sit down for the following three weeks – she keeps forgetting that being a naughty girl and manipulating her daddy is bad and she shouldn't do it, and there's only one way that's ever worked to get the idea across to her. Every so often I wonder how I managed to produce such a contrary brat of a daughter, but then I remember she gets it from her old man."

"... this is to-do with Flint, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is." Harry sighed. "According to Luna's notes, if I hadn't got the Hat to make me a Gryff, you wouldn't have had anyone to turn to when you needed to feel protected – she didn't say what would have happened, but I can imagine all too easily. Drop-out or suicide. Fuck, the thought makes my blood run cold, and not just because the Plan'd be shot to hell without you. Donald reckoned I'd make a good snake, and he's probably right, but showing your hand early is the sort of amateur's mistake I can't afford to make. There's a time for truth, kiddo, and this sure as Hell ain't it." He sighed again. "Ever played with fire? Hell of a game – put one foot wrong and you wind up fried. And put it this way, I wish to Hell the stakes I'm playing for were that low."

"What is it you're working for, Harry? What is it your plan's about?"

Harry angled a thumb out the window at the mountains of Skye on the horizon.

"A hell a long time ago," he said, "One of exactly two people I can conclusively state I would never say no to asked me to take care of his planet for him, so his planet's getting taken care of. Then there's the fact it's the Clans planet too and it's stopping them self-destructing due to none of them wanting to risk it getting blown up. They call it 'Earth' these days. Once we've got all this shit over and done with, it'll be different. You've got no idea how much I'm looking forwards to the day I can retire."

"Retire? As in...?"

"Someday," Harry said with a sigh, "When the smoke clears and the guns fall silent and we realise it's all over and the galaxy's at peace, that's the day I'll hang up my swords and I'll clear my guns... On that day, I'll vanish, become someone else, someone who doesn't have to worry about all this shit, and I'll be taking you with me when I go. I never wanted to be a part of all this, but that's what life handed me and I've just gotta fucking deal. I'd do anything to retire, kiddo, but I can't afford to, not yet. Until then... You know how it works when I've taken a job."

"Or die trying." Hermione said.

"Exactly."

"Harry, who is he? The man who asked you to take care of Earth?"

Harry smiled distantly, getting that telltale stare into the past.

"Hardly anyone knows it these days, but his name _was_ Leto Atreides."

"That doesn't mean much to me." Hermione admitted.

"You want the truth? I've given you enough information to track the facts down, the rest is up to you. And, Hermione? We can't afford anyone learning what I just told you, information doesn't come much more classified than this; until I say different you are not allowed to tell anyone anything about my boss, regardless of circumstances. That's an order, kid."

"Okay." Hermione said, nodding distractedly, then frowned. "You have a boss?"

"Yeah. I have a boss. My boss and Leto? Same person. You know enough to find the details, kiddo. If you really think you want to know..." He shrugged. "You can use the resources you've got. The information's out there; no secret is ever perfectly secure."

"You still don't trust me, do you?"

"I trust you just fine, sei kara," Harry said, stroking the back of her head, "But when it comes to the Plan... I don't trust anyone, I can't trust anyone, not even myself, especially not myself – I've already screwed part of it up by acting like some sort of a damnfool amateur... Christ, kid, I know how important all this is. Without the Plan, the galaxy doesn't have a future, but no plan ever survives contact with the enemy – and there's times I'm my own worst enemy. I'd never thought I'd find lengths I wouldn't be able to bring myself to take for the Plan, and it's always the details you don't expect that get you in the end."

Hermione didn't reply; she wasn't sure what to say.

"Aw, hell with it. We'd better get some grub."

* * *

On arriving in the Gryffindor hangout, Asari walked into a fist, sending the cave-elven girl measuring her length on the floor and abruptly interrupting the clothing-related argument she'd been having with Ginny.

The owner of the fist was tall, pale-skinned, pointy-eared, somewhat fey-looking and had a sneer Severus Snape would have been proud of as he followed up the punch by kicking Asari in the guts; Ginny went for the Sentek handgun her elder brother Bill had given her, but two more someones grabbed her arms, and she abruptly realised that there was a fully-functional mob of assorted elves from assorted houses.

"Go back to your hole Drow." the one who'd decked Asari spat, swinging his leg back for another kick, only to go sprawling as a short, somewhat unprepossessing ginger-haired girl in a motorbike jacket, demin jeans, boots and somewhat S&Mish jewelery applied her steel toecap to his crotch in a blindingly fast snap-kick; one of the other elves (a Ravenclaw) tried to grab her, and went cartwheeling across the room, landing on the pool table, as Harry Johnson threw him away from the girls.

"What the _fuck_ do you bastards think you're _doing_?" the mercenary snarled.

"Johnson, it's a _drow_." one of the elves snapped. "An evil babykilling murdering devil-worshipper that needs to be put down before it kills the lot of us in our sl-" He stopped there, because it was at that moment that Harry shoved the barrel of an unreasonably large machine gun between the Deladarian's teeth; as this was happening, the ginger girl with the collar had ducked under another elf's guard and sent him careening backwards over a sofa with a palm thrust to his solar plexus.

"Let me tell you something, jimcrack," Harry snarled, pausing to wallop in the face with an elbow the elf who'd tried to sneak up behind him, "I saw what you bastards did on Shenth, and now you're expecting me to just sit back and ignore you doing the same shit again? Well, you've got another fucking think coming, Any of you pointy-eared lily-white bastards touch a hair in Asari's head and I will make you wish you'd never been fucking born – isn't much I enjoy more than putting _bullets_ in fucking _jimcracks_. Got it?"

What had moments ago been the nucleus of a lynch mob abruptly evaporated.

The ginger girl with the collar and bike jacket gave Asari a hand up.

"You okay?" Harry asked.

She nodded. "I'll live… Would you really have shot them if they hadn't backed off?"

Harry glanced at his outsize gun and shoved it under his jacket, where it seemed to abruptly vanish.

"Rules of firearms safety. Look 'em up sometime."

"I guess you don't much like Deladarians, Harry." Ginny remarked as the four of them resumed the interrupted journey to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Gunning for understatement of the year award? I hate fucking jimcracks. They're just about the shittiest thing in this shitty old galaxy. They're almost as bad as the Commoraugh lot, and those sick fucks are an inspiration for the indiscriminate deployment of planet-busters. Only functional difference is it's possible to tame a jimcrack. Can't say I much like any elves, but the jimcracks and the Commoraugh Eldar are the worst of a shitty lot."

"Aren't you part-elf?" Ginny asked.

"My great-great-grandmother was spoils of war from a couple Kendarat-Deladar Wars ago. Never met her, never wanted to. Fuck that babble about equality of species – the only things jimcracks are good for is target practise or the slave market."

"Why do you hate them so much?" Asari dubiously asked.

"Can't say I much like anyone who's got their nose so high in the air they have difficulty seeing over their nostrils. Same goes for anyone who thinks they're culturally superior to everyone else by definition, and if they use that as an excuse too often that really doesn't help. And if they're convinced they're the fucking master race, well, that's them the fuck off my Christmas card list – I've had unpleasant experiences with wannabe master races a time or two. Most elves tick all those boxes and the jimcracks are the worst of the lot. At least you can find the odd decent individual in most other elven species. The day you meet a jimcrack who isn't an utter bastard watch out, it'll rain pig-shit. Put it this way, that's a Leaguer platform tag on her jacket yet they still organised a lynch mob."

"Leaguer platform tag?" Ginny asked. "What's one of them when it's at home?"

"You been living under a rock?" Asari asked her, put out.

"It's the equivalent of fightercraft nose art or a nationality flag or a unit patch or some-such, but for a Leaguer mining platform or settlement or whatever. Started off as a New Aussie native tradition – tribe recognition – and got taken up by Chaos after a friend of his managed to remind him he isn't a tram. It spread from there, these days any Leaguer settlement or any Leaguer starship with enough population to call a settlement has tags and they tend to use 'em." Harry told Ginny, indicating the sewn-on patch on the left shoulder of Asari's jacket, which showed a fish sticking out of a tin can marked 'Treacle', with 'Treacle of Fish' in ornate letters above it. "LSS-086 Weird Fish, right?" That last was addressed to Asari.

"You've done your homework." Asari said with a laugh. "My digs are in sector twelve, deck sixty, core quadrant – two doors up from Stevie's digs, actually, you know him right?"

"Yeah, we've met."

"Hey, does the Blink Dog have one of those?" Hermione asked, indicating Asari's platform tag.

"Sure we do." Alice said, having just arrived in the area. She slapped the sleeve of her boiler suit, the one with 'Blink Dog' written down it. "S'what that's about."

"I've never seen Ben or Michelle wearing one."

"Ben only wears his for formal occasions, it's on his Jedi robes and he doesn't much like them." Asari said. "And the Cowabunga surfer isn't pink enough for Michelle."

"... oh, right." Hermione mused as they diverged, the group of second-years heading for the usual CTMA table while the two first-years headed for the vague area of where the other Gryff firsties were.

"Do you think Harry's right about Deladarians?" Ginny dubiously asked Asari; she hadn't been sufficiently sidetracked.

"... I couldn't really say." Asari said. "You're asking the wrong person; being a cave-elf is a death-penalty crime in Deladarian space, so, well, it's not exactly on my list of places to visit. And, yeah, they don't tend to check whether someone's a Leaguer or a Menzo before they start shooting. I mean, I'm not really surprised all things considering, the Menzos have been running slaving raids on the Deladarian eastern fringe for, ye gods, fifty, maybe sixty, thousand years. But... well, like Harry said, I'm not exactly hiding this." She indicated her platform tag."

"How many of those things are there?" Ginny asked.

"I dunno but there's gotta be thousands." Asari said, shrugging. "There's a full list on the League website but I've never checked it out."

"Huh... Hi, mind if we sit here?" Ginny asked a short, somewhat uprepossessing guy in a T-shirt and jeans, who had a very nice Earther camera bag on a shoulder strap.

"Hmm? OH! Oh, heya! Hi! Sure, siddown, that's cool!" he enthusiastically declared, budging up. "Hey, I'm Colin! Colin Creevy! And this is Jason McMurdo – I pronounced it right didn't I? - and this is Eiko Kent!"

"I'm Asari Chaos and this is Ginny Weasley." Asari said, sitting down.

"Oh I know who you are, I'm a big fan of the Grand Warlord, he's awesome! Hey, is your big brother over there seriously a Jedi? That's so cool!"

"Shutcher trap, Colin." said the guy whom Colin had called Jason – lanky with buzzcut blonde hair and aristocratic features quite out of tune with the somewhat dog-eared heavy-duty work clothes he was wearing. "Let the ladies get a word in sideways why don't yeh?"

"OH! Um, sorry, I kinda tend to yammer when I'm excited!" the guy with the camera stated the obvious, and shut up.

"Don't mind Colin," the pint-sized girl with the fire-engine-red hair whom Colin had called Eiko said. "He's a bit of the nerd but he's a nice enough guy when you get him to slow down."

"Aw, no worries." Asari said, waving it off as she helped herself to food. "You should hear Dad when he gets going – Nenk's the only person who's ever managed to get him to slow down."

"Nenk? That's a weird name." Eiko said.

"It means 'three' in Zeurghnorfian." Colin piped up, then shut his mouth with a snap when Eiko glared at him.

"Her full name's Nenk Deketh." Asari said. "It means 'five hundred and three' in Zeurghnorfian, she's a Twenk Zeughnorfian that Dad salvaged from a shipwreck way back and since then she's been Dad's clue."

"... you what?" Eiko bemusedly asked. "I, uh, thought Zerg-her-no-funs or however you pronounce it were supposed to be these evil alien invaders?"

"I don't know much about New Australia but I do know much about Norfs." Ginny remarked. "There's three types of Norf. The first type is the Dlorp Zeurghnorfian. Dlorp means 'Devout' in Norf and they're all homicidal religious maniacs who think every non-Zeurghnorfian sapient being in the universe is a heretical monster that needs to be killed, they look like seven foot tall hairless green monkeys. The second type is the Glurk Zeurghnorfian, and Glurk means 'Heretic' in Norf, they're the same species as Dlorps but they believe that Zeughnorfians are the gods' ultimate creation and therefore responsible for protecting all 'lesser' beings, they look kinda like seven foot tall fuzzy white baboons since unlike Dlorps they don't shave themselves. The third type are Twenk Zeurghnorfians, they look like a Norf's over-cute mini-me and they're living fold drives, they're all slaves and used as starship components by the Norfs, they're mostly clones."

"Well she missed out a lot of details but she's got all the big points." Colin said, nodding thoughtfully.

"Nenk's a Twenk Zeurghnorfian who Dad pulled out the drive bay of a wrecked Norf starship and got Aunt Washu to teach important things like how to think." Asari said. "After that she decided that since Dad's got an attention span shorter'n a short-arsed Adruzeg and pretty much no short-term memory worth talking about he needed to get a clue and she volunteered herself for the job since she hadn't got a lot else to do."

"... so she's one of the evil aliens' slave aliens who got away because a hero helped and she's decided to be the hero's walking conscience, right, that's cool, Dad's got a friend who's got one of those." Eiko mused.

* * *

Right as the group of first-years were getting stuck into a discussion on the technicalities of the Chaos family and embarrassing the hell out of Asari, Dumbledore, up at the staff table, performed his usual clear-throat, bang-spoon-on-plate, tremendously-loud-belch method of getting everyone's attention for an announcement.

"Ahem, thankyou and good morning. As you've all hopefully heard, we are currently short one Assault Magecraft tutor, which means it's time to pay out to the winner of the wager as to how long this one would last. Miss Luna Lovegood, congratulations, you're fifty-two Galleons better off than you were yesterday."

There was a ripple of laughter and several cries of 'Lucky bitch!' from assorted quadrants of the room.

"As you all likely realise, this means Assault Magecraft will be cancelled until we can find a replacement tutor. We're working on it and will fill you in when we actually know something more than, 'Ummm...'."

That got another laugh.

"Further to this point, the sparring club that we had hoped to unveil this week will be postponed until further notice, once again dependent on us managing to find a replacement Assault Magecraft tutor. Thankyou for your attention."

And, with that, he cancelled the voice-amplification charm and went back to his breakfast.

"Sparring club, huh?" Harry remarked. "Nah, not for me."

"Why's that?" Hermione asked. S'tarak'hai abruptly started glaring at something behind her.

"Tell you later. Let's just say, it wouldn't be a good idea."

"What, chicken?" an unexpected (and unwanted) voice asked from behind them.

"Only one person in this building I'm interested in a magical spar with, Malfoy, and I somehow doubt Dumbledore'll be there." Harry said.

"You think you can measure up to _him_?" Draco Malfoy dubiously asked.

"In a gunfight he'd be dead before he knew I was in the area. Knife fight, his ass would be grass. Fist fight, ditto. Magic fight? It'd be interesting to find out." Harry said, shrugging.

"Personally, I'd be interested to find out how you and I measure up, Johnson."

"Can't say I'm interested in what you're interested in, Malfoy."

"Oh well, since you're a chicken-shit asshole I'll just have to stick with making everyone else look bad." Draco stated, and sauntered off.

"Must. Resist. Temptation. To. Publicly. Ventilate." Harry muttered. "Annoying little bastard."

"Will you be attending the sparring club once it begins, Harry?" another unexpected voice asked; turning round, they found themselves looking at none other than Albus Dumbledore.

"There's only one person in this building I'm interested in a magical spar with, old man, and I somehow doubt he'll be there." Harry told the elderly headmaster, shrugging.

"And who might he be?"

Hermione found herself wondering why Dumbledore's eyes had gone all twinkly this time.

"You." Harry told the old man.

"Well, we'll see." Dumbledore said, and ambled off someplace else.

"... annoying old bastard."

* * *

The first class of the day was one of the year's new subject, a course called Arithmancy, which took place in a windowless but well-lit room with a tall, pallid, dark-haired man who, despite the tallness, paleness and dark-hairdness looked almost completely unlike Severus Snape and not just due to having obviously heard of shampoo. He was clad in a dapper somewhat Victorian-cut outfit with purple smoking jacket, and as the students entered was stood contemplating them with his hand resting on the head of an ornate silver-and-ebony walking stick.

He was not, everyone immediately noted, someone they'd seen at the staff table.

"A good morning." he said, once everyone was seated. "My name is Count Orlock von Vector and as you have perhaps heard it is my task to edify you all in the grand science of arithmancy." He raised one eyebrow. "Before we proceed I wish to make it quite clear that I am a vampire formerly of Clan Tremere, and if anyone has a problem with that I should like to invite them to depart this lecture at once as, I wish to make quite clear, I was not given a choice in being Embraced and I do not tolerate racial hate within this chamber." With that, he turned his back on the class.

Nobody made a move to leave, though Integra's eyes went like slits and she started fingering her crucifix pendant.

Vector eventually broke the uncomfortable silence by spinning round.

"Superb, you're all still here. Today I shall begin by introducing you to the subject of ritual circles, their function, and their geometry, a core matter for the material I shall introduce you to over the coming year. A ritual circle," he said, "Always has an odd number of points. Would anyone care to tell me why that is? Yes, Miss Granger?"

"To establish a centre." Hermione said.

Vector nodded.

"Precisely. And would you care to name the reason that more points around the circumference make a circle more powerful?"

"By magnifying the flows of power; each point is connected to every other point by a line of power, and the more lines that form the centre circle the more power there is to use."

"Aha, you've done your homework all right. Indeed. And would you care to name the factor that makes circles of more than nine points so difficult to create and maintain?"

"Precision. The higher the number of points, the higher the necessary accuracy. For example, a ten millimetre margin of error is usable in a nine-point circle, but for circles with eleven or more points that margin of error drops precipitously." Hermione said. "By the level of a twenty-seven point circle, the usable margin of error is approximately a hundredth of a millimetre."

"Indeed, five points to Gryffindor. Yes, the accuracy factor of a truly powerful circle is unnerving. Of course, there are many and myriad tools that enable one to reach that level of precision, but at the end of the day you will only ever get a circle as good as you are. And would you care to name exactly where and when you have had experience with the creation and maintenance of a ritual circle, Miss Granger?"

Hermione paused.

"No, actually, but it's a thirty-three point circle and I didn't create it but I did repair it, I used nanites."

Vector raised an eyebrow.

"I see. The circle in question is the one in a certain summoning chamber wherein a certain merry band known as the CTMA meet, correct?"

"How did you figure that out?" S'tarak'hai grunted.

Vector raised his other eyebrow.

"Elementary, my dear R'hara'tath. The only other thirty-three point circle in this building is the one within the headmaster's ritual chambers. As the circle within a certain summoning chamber was in a state of disrepair but I felt it's reactivation a few months ago it is fairly safe guess."

"I see." S'tarak'hai grunted.

"You may be interested to know," Vector continued, in the same slow measured tones, "That both aforesaid circles were created by the same magi, along with the thirty-one point circle within this room and the thirty-five point circle within Professor Flitwick's private chambers. That mage was in fact the founder of House Ravenclaw. Very few magi will ever have the ability to create a circle of more than twenty-five points without the use of substantial quantities of computerised equipment, laser measurement systems, AI-controlled etching nanites and other such new-fangled crap. It may please those of you from House Ravenclaw to know that your founder used no tool or gadget other than an athame, a few pieces of string and some marker sticks."

Vector proceeded to go on about angles and percentages and methods of making sure things were straight for about ten minutes, then suddenly grinned and raised both eyebrows.

"And now," he said, "For a little glimpse of all the fun one can have with the aid of a good ritual circle… A volunteer, please."

Tara stood up, her cocky grin firmly in place.

Vector waggled his eyebrows at her, then proceeded to demonstrate a small ritual for the imbuement of good fortune; with that out the way, he immediately launched into a long-winded explanation of the geometries and function of a ritual circle, frequently stopping for asides or to answer questions.

His eyebrows remained alarmingly mobile the whole time.

* * *

"My GOD those EYEBROWS." Ron groaned, gently banging his head on the CTMA table; having got done with Arithmancy, they'd just arrived in the Great Hall for lunch.

Tara sniggered. "I think he's fun."

"Why is nobody at all concerned by an undead tutor?" Integra asked.

S'tarak'hai snorted. "Their fangs cannot penetrate my subdermal armour, my reflexes are faster than theirs, and I am carrying a flamethrowing handgun of Adeptus Sororitas origin; a walking corpse cannot do much to irritate me. And besides, Her Radiant Majesty granted corporeal undead the right to citizenship within the Thousand Kingdoms sixteen years ago. As he openly stated his nature in a public forum I do not believe he poses a threat."

"And the fact he's here and admitting what he is tells me one of two things. Either he's our Camarilla spy for the year in which case he won't be boat-rocking, or he's a renegade in which case he's even less likely to boat-rock." Harry distractedly remarked; he was staring fixedly at a small mirror and repeatedly raising his eyebrows.

"Who cares anyway, what've we got next?" Ron asked. "What? I can't remember the bloody schedule yet."

"Transmogrification then Technomancy." Hermione told him.

"Oh, cool. Hey, whatcha doing Harry?"

"I'm trying to work out how the leech does the eyebrow thing." Harry said, causing prompt long-suffering eye-rolls from Hermione (one side of him) and the Patil twins (the other side of him) while Ron gave him a bemused look.

* * *

The remainder of the day was same-old, though the transmogrification and technomantic work they were doing was somewhat more advanced than the previous year and, thus, less boring. Once that was over with, they spent a lazy evening hanging around the summoning room and taking pot-shots at the dartboard with an old air rifle while Harry and S'tarak'hai got in a huge mock-argument about the finer points of forced entry procedures. Dinner was the usual affair in which a lot of noise was made but nothing happened, and with that out the way Hermione joined Harry in retiring to his room; here Carla was apparently asleep in her dog-bed-style basket at the foot of Harry's bed, while the Puma twins, still tethered, were wound round each other and snoozing in front of the heater.

As soon as the door was closed, Hermione immediately pounced with the question she'd been stewing over since breakfast.

"Harry," she said, sitting down on his bed beside him, "You said you'd tell me why you sparring magically is a bad idea later."

"I did indeed." Harry mused, sprawling back so his head landed in her lap to idly contemplate her with the unreadable gaze he'd taken to of late. Carla sat up, quietly greeted them, and curled back up.

"So what gives?" she asked.

Harry grinned wryly. "It's actually pretty simple. In a straight-up magic-only fight, no cybernetics allowed, I'd almost certainly get my ass handed to me. Hell, Neville would take me the fuck _out_. Even Crabbe or Goyle would utterly clean house on me in a magical duel. Ergo, the only person in the building I have any interest in sparring with is the one person absolutely everyone expects to be able to knock me arse over tit."

"What? How?" Hermione asked, completely mind-boggled.

"You know about ctU ratings?" he asked.

"Actually, no." she said, annoyed with herself – she was getting quite fed up with, no matter how fast she learned, constantly running head on into how little she actually knew. "I just know it's how they rate the comparative power of different people's auras but I haven't read up on them yet."

"Right. Well, a non-magical human rates out at around five to ten, fifteen to twenty for exceptionally weird individuals – there's a bit of magic in any living thing. Anyone under a hundred can't draw enough magic for a casting. A typical Collegium student is between five hundred and two thousand. You're currently impossible to calculate, nobody's ever calibrated anything high enough. John Kirth's about thirty thousand. Dumbledore, a hundred twenty-six thousand. Tommy-boy, last time he was assayed he came out at about ninety-seven thousand and he's got more powerful since then. Lina Inverse has the highest measurable ctU rating of anyone currently alive at sixty-seven and a half million and before you think that means she'd stomp Old Mouldy or the old fart into the dirt that's just raw power, skill trumps it every time – Kirth could kick her around all week and I'd call it even on her versus Tommy. Where do you think I rate?"

"Pretty high – you said you're a sorcerer."

"Oh, I am. But, try three hundred fifty-seven."

"... what?"

"Yup. Lowest-powered sorcerer on the record, that's me. I'm no squib, but I have to be very very careful or I'll really knock myself for six."

"Okaaay... but how's that work? I thought sorcerer meant infinite supply of magic?"

"For you yeah, but for most of us a flow of water's a better comparison – you break the equations." Harry said, giving her an odd little grin. "Mages, most of the collegium students included, draw magical energy from the environment around them. How much they can draw depends on their aura – nobody's really sure what governs it or why the weirder a person is the more powerful a mage they'll make, but some mages can draw power faster than others and it's something that can be learned and improved on. A sorcerer's aura's built differently. Instead of being able to draw magic from the world around us, we actually generate it within our auras. If a mage is sticking a turbine in a river of power, a sorcerer's the reservoir the river flows from. Only with me it's more like the flow rate of a leaky garden hose or, say, a thirty-round magazine that refills itself at about a round a minute; I've got a constant but rather small supply of magic and if I run it dry I crash and burn, the harder I hit bottom the longer I'm out for the count. I can use the Dark Side to speed my thaum regeneration, but that just digs me in deeper – mixing magical exhaustion with Force exhaustion isn't fun. You should've seen me the time Lina tried to teach me that big-ass explosion spell of hers, I went tilt and was out of it for six weeks."

"... that's pretty fucked up."

"Way the cookie crumbles, sei kara. That's the lot I got handed in life and I've dealt with it. Sure, blowing holes in armoured vehicles with Kirth's favourite spell will put me on my ass in minutes unless I'm mainlining thaum regeneratives, whatever, teach a man Electron Ram and he can knock out tanks till he's exhausted, give him a railgun with plenty ammo and he'll still be knocking tanks out a month next Sunday. I've got enough magic to get advance warning and get the Hell out the way if something's inbound, and there's a lot of tricks I can pull, but to win a fight with a mage I need an advantage. I don't do the usual advantage – Unforgivables – because besides being the sort of thing that gets you shitcanned for life if you slip up and get caught they've all got big disadvantages I don't need and anyway, pros don't need that sort of cheap trick – guns are faster, easier to aim, less likely to warp your mind, and it's surprising how helpful people tend to become when all they can see is rifling."

"... huh... Harry, surely there's something you could do about it."

"Yeah, battery familiars. In other words, rip some poor schmuck's soul out and use it to bind 'em to you, linking auras and giving you access to theirs. Not something I particularly like risking, on anything but a carefully-programmed clone like Carla you can all too easily get personality contamination and that way lies a bad time for all concerned. It's a variant of the same damnfool game as the Av Kav and that shit's for amateur fuckwads who don't mind going schizophrenic. Personally, I reckon it's just as colossally bad an idea as any sort of a soul bond – fuck that, think I'll keep my aura the way it is."

"Soul bonds? Like that whole one mind, two bodies thing? I'd have thought that depth of understanding would be good?"

"Hermione, I'm a mind-reader, I know what's actually happening inside Joe Normal's head and believe you me, I wish I didn't. That sort of crap is a very rapid and effective way to get two people to loathe each other, it normally ends up with homicide or suicide and not just because a complete and utter lack of any privacy whatsoever is about the quickest way to make someone go stark staring insane."

"How come?"

"You know all those stupid nasty little mean-spirited thoughts that pop up from time to time, the little passing fantasies about giving people back the shit they've given you, the times you've fantasised about the look on some ignorant twat's face if you told them exactly what you think of them?" Harry asked, giving her one of his searching looks. "I saw the mayhem in your mind when you realised what I'd done to you, I know you fantasized about castrating me with a belt sander, can't say I blame you for that seeing as how I'd do way worse to anyone who tried to implant an obedience compulsion in my head, but that kind of thoughts aren't exactly pleasant to get a front-row seat for and I could no more stop hearing poorly-shielded thoughts than you could stop yourself being disgusted by the stench when Ron drops a bean feast fart. And most people don't shield properly when they're getting worked up. Think about it."

"... oh. Er..."

"Ids aren't exactly pleasant places," Harry continued with a small grimace, "And in fact listening to the thoughts of half of everyone makes Ron's wind positively pleasant by comparison – y'know actually, that's why I like the guy, he doesn't have that inner censor between grey-gunk and gob, it makes a refreshing change to meet someone who doesn't think anything stupider or nastier than any half-thought-through claptrap that comes out of his mouth. Hell, you should see what goes on behind Michelle's eyes when someone snubs her – you know that slightly wilted look she gets just before she goes somewhere else for a while? She's got one fucking unnerving imagination and a carefully-suppressed inner homicidal bitch."

"No way." Hermione said.

"Yes way. Everyone's got an inner bastard and that bastard isn't far from the surface." Harry grimaced again. "Having someone bitching away in my head all the time? Fuck that."

"... huh." Hermione said, thinking over what she'd just heard. "Thaum regeneratives?"

"What about 'em?"

"You said casting will wear you out quickly unless you're taking a lot of thaum regeneratives."

"Yup... Hermione, some of the gaps in your knowledge are just... actually, that one sort of makes sense, the chance of you needing thaum regeneratives is pretty piss-poor. They're also called mana potions. Street name's Flare or Spook. There's two forms, powder or liquid. Powder you can snort or smoke. Liquid you can drink or inject. The powder's more powerful, but shooting up on the liquid's more effective by cost. That said, they're opiates. Not much of a high, just a mild buzz, it doesn't damage your body unless you really overdo it, but they can be addictive in high doses."

"You're hooked on them, aren't you?"

"Well, hell kiddo, what can I say? There's worse things to be addicted to, say, Frenzon for a start, that stuff'll stunt your growth, and anyway so long as I don't get really carried away my regeneration'll tank any damage from injecting mana potions."

"Harry, how often are you tanking yourself up on that stuff?"

"Well, let's just say that's what the bracelet I've got on my right wrist does." Harry told her, indicating it. "IV drip, triggered by my vital signs, gives me a jolt whenever it detects my aura being tapped, it's hooked up to a dimensional pocket full of a couple hundred thousand gallons of the stuff, here at the Collegium I go through about a gallon a day."

Hermione paused for a long moment, and then selected the copy of the Encyclopaedia Galactica he had laying on his table.

A few moments searching later, she had a quick read and then gave him a highly irritated look.

"That's enough to make a human's liver burst five times over." she said. "And according to this, it'll make you paranoid and hypersexual. And it doesn't take a much higher dose to start you hallucinating."

"It isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you and I was a sex machine before I started doing Spook. I know, I know, it's a bad plan but seriously, what the hell choice have I got? My aura isn't up to the job so I need a little alchemical assistance."

"It's illegal in Britain." Hermione pointed out.

"Kiddo, to guys like me, the law's something that happens to other people. But, fuck it, that's why I'm not interested in this sparring club. There's only so far workarounds will get you, and if I tanked Spook at the rate I'd need for a couple hours of magical sparring, well, that'd be enough to get me tripping my balls off."

"Why don't you just get another half dozen Carlas?" As soon as she asked that, she knew it'd been a serious mistake; he was bolt upright in a shot, his hands almost but not quiet gripping her throat, staring straight into her eyes with a half-crazed look that took several long and highly unpleasant moments to fade; this served to wake up the Puma twins.

"Don't ever ask me that again, Hermione. Bad history." he told her, slowly letting go of her neck. "Still puts me into kill frenzies."

"... S-sorry, H-Harry." she said, and he winced visibly before turning away from her.

"Not your fault, I'm just surprised it took you this long to step in that minefield. I need to calm down; I'm going to go have a word with some Ravenclaws about acceptable treatment of ladies, I'll be back in half an hour."

With that, he selected a large machine gun from one of his gun racks, slotted a boxed belt of ammo into place, and went ghosting out of the room, notably not pulling the cocking handle.

"Master's getting real good at understatements." Carla remarked, sitting up at the bottom of the bed.

"... what?" Hermione blankly asked.

"Bad history. Talk about understatement." Carla shook her head. "I'll give you the short version. I'm a force-grown clone of Carla Jutland, the first woman Master ever fell in love with. She turned out to be a Tzeentch cultist called Nehelania, and she came closer to killing Master than anyone who isn't Voldemort ever has – he hates her but part of him's still head-over-heels for her. That's why he always keeps me or, well, one of my predecessors around, but at the same time that's why I'm disposable. He's got a lot better since he found you, but I don't think he'll ever entirely be over her."

"Predecessors?" Hermione blankly asked.

"Yeah. I'm the twelfth Carla, I think – I'm not really sure, Master backs my memories up every few months, but there's enough gaps in them I couldn't really say if a few more of me fit into some of those gaps, or if he deleted bits he doesn't trust anyone with."

"You're his familiar, he sort of ate your soul, you're sort of an extension of him, how's that work?"

"He wasn't joking when he said he doesn't trust himself with the Plan."

"... that's... warped. How can he not have to, uh, you get the idea?"

"Well, he doesn't even know half the Plan, and he Obliviated himself of a lot of the bits he didn't need to know about, I know that much for sure."

"... wow. He's a mess, isn't he?" Hermione mused.

"Yes, he is." Carla confirmed.

"He's broken in the head." Uni remarked, sitting up.

"And it's up to us, his girls, to put him back together again." Anna added.

"Because we're the only ones who can." her twin concluded.

"Someone's got to take care of the big lunk." Carla agreed. "I mean, I know I was programmed to feel how I feel, I know I'm a completely replaceable tool... but I can't say I care, it doesn't make me loving him any less real."

* * *

There was a loud and sudden metallic slide-crunch from behind one of the curtains; every conversation in the Ravenclaw hangout simply _ceased_ as every head turned to stare in that direction as what had been an ordinary evening came screeching to a halt with that noise.

It sounded exactly like a very large gun being cocked.

Jean Jefferson stood up, walked over, and pulled the curtain apart. She very promptly froze, rooted to the spot by something she was blocking the rest of the persons in the room from seeing.

A large long-fingered hand clad in a black leather glove reached round, gripped her shoulder, and roughly shoved her to one side; she went over like she'd been pole-axed, fortunately hitting a sofa.

Lizard-like eyes as cold and hard as the flakes of jade their colour resembled swept across the collective House Ravenclaw – but it wasn't those eyes that held the 'Claws attention.

It was the yawning barrel of the overly large machine gun those eyes were hovering behind the sights of that grabbed, and held, the attention of House Ravenclaw.

"Browning M-2 Heavy Barrel, known to her friends as Ma Deuce." Harry Johnson conversationally remarked. "These old ladies will put a full metal jacketed slug clean through an engine block at a thousand yards. Half an inch of lead may not sound like much, but when there's a few dozen of 'em travelling faster than the speed of sound, it's fucking much." He was sitting sprawled on the windowsill, and looking at the Ravenclaws like most people would look at a bunch of exceptionally irritating cockroaches.

"What the Hell are you _doing_, Johnson?" the male Ravenclaw prefect, one Ian Steiner, asked.

By way of a reply, Harry tipped the M-2 up and raked the ceiling with bullets, showering everyone in the room with wood chippings and plaster dust.

"Leg-work." Harry stated, breaking the deafening silence that followed the gunfire. "Research. Intelligence acquisition. Call it what you like, it's a critically important procedure in my line of work – knowing enemies and potential targets isn't just a good policy, it's the first step in staying alive to pick up the payoff, and from time to time that involves making sure people don't remember me interrogating them, especially when I've had to be insistent about it – torture isn't exactly pretty but it can be surprisingly versatile and fun from time to time. I've been chasing down a few home truths about House Ravenclaw and I'd like to make it abundantly clear to you worthless fucks that Luna Lovegood and Padma Patil are my private property. There's only one being in this universe or any other who's allowed to mess with my girls, _and he's me_ – and if you bastards make me have to come over here again I won't limit myself to shooting the _ceiling_."

"What the fuck is Loony Lovegood to you?" the female Ravenclaw prefect, Allessa McKenna, asked. She didn't ask about the Patil girl; everyone knew Padma was sleeping with Harry.

"One. She's one of my CTMAers; that means she's one of my people, and it's not just in a firefight I'm watching her back. Two, you fucks need to learn the meaning of property and I'm not just talking about the fact I own Luna – mind, body, soul. Three, people who mess with my girls become worth the cost of a bullet or fifty. Fuck the excuses, they have a viciously successful accident. Four, I know what you bastards have been playing at, and I know why there's just as much of a rebellion in Ravenclaw as there is in Slytherin – and I don't give a damn about your fucking house traditions, either they don't apply to my girls or people start going down with fatal cases of _high-velocity __lead poisoning_. Hope you all got that first time, ammo doesn't grow on trees and neither do alibis."

With that, he fell backwards out the open window, vanishing into the gathering dusk. A few moments passed, then Steiner plucked up the courage to walk over to the window and have a look at (and out) it.

The glass had a circular hole cut in it right near the handle and the disk of glass was lying on the windowsill; of Harry, aside from the scattering of hot cartridge cases and the bullet holes in the ceiling, there was no sign.

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – The whole 'Cult of Ravenclaw' was inspired by a fic I read a while back, which I can no longer remember the name of, which featured a Ravenclaw 'cult' that came over as a bunch of fairly harmless obnoxious twats. I figured that a few alterations would make a perfect target for Harry to over-react to; though somewhat worse than the source of inspiration, they're not nearly as bad as he thinks – he's assuming the worst as usual.

Oh, and neither are Deladarians; he's quite decidedly racist about that lot for similar reasons to why Pacific War veterans tend to have a distinct dislike for Japanese people – and much the same goes for the Deladarian reaction to Drow.

And in case you were wondering, 'Jimcrack' is a decidedly nasty racial slur on a level with 'Mudblood' or 'Nalfer'.

Doghead Out.


	6. Chapter 5

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_But now you're here I feel no fear_

_I can't believe the news from heaven_

_You close your eyes on a world inside_

_A spark of life on a wire from heaven..._

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"So, I suppose you are all wondering why we are here." S'tarak'hai glanced around the room, taking in each face in turn.

There were ten of them, himself included, all of them armed to the teeth; nine assorted Kenti and one human. They were Her Radiant Majesty's finest; these people were the best there were.

The hulking tiger-furred Kenti who was leaning on the edge of the doorframe nodded. "May I be frank, sir?"

"Of course, Tark." Tark was the team's support gunner. He was big, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested and didn't make a habit of mincing his words.

"The briefing was bullshit." Tark stated, glancing at the others. "I could see the holes from orbit – it was not so much what they were leaving out as what they were not leaving out."

"What in the hells is going on?" Liaria, the talon mage, added.

"What you are about to see and hear is classified white seven." S'tarak'hai stated; there were several low whistles as he turned to his laptop, selected a file, punched in a decryption key, and opened it.

That was the highest level of classification in the Thousand Kingdoms.

S'tarak'hai stood back as the pair of rotating images appeared on the screen.

"Wait. That's..." Reiana, team sniper and incidentally S'tarak'hai's twin sister, started, pointing a shaking hand at the screen.

His team immediately crowded round the monitor, staring fixedly at the two startlingly similar holograms.

"My God, you found her." Jason Yee, sole non-Kenti member of the Talon, murmured.

"Are you certain about this?" Reiana asked.

"Absolutely." S'tarak'hai replied, nodding. "I have confirmed her identity myself, and her mother double-checked my confirmation; Tarai T'rash'gal is indeed our wayward princess. I trust you all realise the ramifications of this."

There was a round of nodding; everyone got the message, and little more needed to be said.

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**Disclaimer: Spooooooooooooooooon.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 5: Everything's better with princesses.**

**(In which further truths out, and a plot or two thickens.)**

Many people, on hearing of the magical accident that moved the Hogwarts librarian from one sub-branch of the evolutionary tree to another, immediately assumed that he must have been quite upset about his abrupt and unexpected apedom.

This is not the case.

While it had, admittedly, taken a lot of getting used to, he found his new body quite convenient for his work and, when one's parents saw fit to name one Horace Worblehat, one might dearly wish people would forget said unfortunate appellation. Among the many benefits of apedom, along with the ability to turn pages with his toes and the replacement of all that philosophical why-we're-here rot with a vague sort of wondering where his next banana was coming from, the Librarian had discovered to his great delight that the stupid name he'd been cursed with at birth wasn't the most distinctive thing about him any more, and arranging for it to be conveniently forgotten had been easy.

The only fly in the ointment, as it were, was students. On the whole, they were a noisy and untidy lot, those of them who had any respect for a good book were few and far between, and he never hesitated to express his disapproval – which is quite easy when you've got large yellow teeth and a face like a highly mobile burlap sack. But of course, every rule has it's exceptions and he found that, on the whole, well, ever since that nice young Pratchett lad became a successful author (a much higher form of life in the Librarian's opinion) the mundane-born students had become quite polite and respectful, not like that pureblood lot and their constant bringing up the M-word.

Uneducated dolts couldn't even recognise an ape when they saw one.

Primary among said exceptions was that nice young Granger girl, she was polite, spoke quietly, tidied up after herself and, best of all, frequently brought him a banana.

He really had to remember to find out where she got those bananas. They were juicy, delicious, and most fresh.

Speaking of whom, there she was, accompanied by that nice young Kenti friend of hers and an aroma of banana.

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Hermione Allison Granger, age seventeen, was cautiously approaching a place about which she had mixed feelings; the Hogwarts library.

As a life-long lover of books, libraries were among her absolutely favourite places, but this one had about the worst memory of her life connected to it; it was here she'd been grabbed by a certain now-dead pureblood, who'd... well, she really didn't like thinking about it or being reminded of it, and the Hogwarts library in specific still reminded her to the point that she still, almost a year since that particular event, never went there alone.

On this particular afternoon, she was accompanied by her usual companion for Librarium trips; Tarai T'rash'gal.

Tara wasn't nearly as much of the bibliophile as her room-mate but that wasn't a big deal; the two of them had become about as close confidants as either got with anyone over the previous year and, in fact, enjoyed hanging out together – and for all that it made Hermione jumpy the library often proved a good place to hang out without loud people everywhere.

Loud people did, after all, usually get literally ejected from the Hogwarts library by a highly unimpressed orang-utan – or, if the Librarian wasn't around, his assistant Miss Erma Pince was remarkably good at disapproving hisses, throat-clearing noises, and (being a Hoffmanite heavy-worlder thus nearly eight feet tall and five feet across the shoulders) the capture of earlobes.

As libraries went, this one was huge. There must have been the best part of a quarter of a million books, spread out across one massive (if peculiarly shaped) room; finding information on any extra-curricular subjects was a task and a half if one knew where to start, and on her current subject of investigation Hermione had absolutely no idea where to begin, therefore she was looking either for Miss Pince or for the Librarian and, as she'd vaguely heard something about Miss Pince being at some sort of conference somewhere she'd decided to bring a bunch of bananas in the assumption that she'd be dealing with a certain orang-utan.

Talking of whom, there he was, seated cross-legged on one of the reading tables well into the library with a large leather-bound tome gripped in his feet, making notes on a scroll with one hand as he thoughtfully turned pages with the other.

"Um, excuse me..." Hermione still wasn't quite sure how one should approach the Librarian.

"Ook?"

She offered him the bananas; he immediately accepted them with a pleased sound, and began eating one while giving her what appeared to be an attempt at a helpful look.

"I'm looking for information on someone called Leto Atraides, and, uh, I was kinda wondering if you know where to find some...?"

Having spent a few moments considering that, the Librarian nodded thoughtfully, said "Ook", plopped the banana peel on top of Hermione's head, and beckoned her to follow.

The sections of the Hogwarts library were arranged by a careful calculation based on frequency of requests on subjects and, more importantly, available space as the library itself was contained in a chamber laid out a bit like someone had written 'SQLERK' in big wobbly letter outlines on the plans and someone else had taken it as the shape of an intended room; this wasn't as far from the truth as most assumed as, in actual fact, it had become that shape due to someone outlining someone else's spilt mead during an inebriated argument about whether or not the plans were correct.

Going by the 'SQLERK' comparison, the mythology section was on the left-hand side of the straight leg of the R right where it connected to the base of the L.

The book that the Librarian had settled on was in the centre top shelf of the mythology section, and for anyone human-shaped and unable to levitate would have required something to stand on to reach; the Librarian went up the shelves like they were made of ladders, selected the book, jumped back down, and handed it to Hermione with a polite 'Ook'; once she'd got a hold of it, he gave her a friendly pat on the head and knuckled off into the stacks.

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To find Luna Lovegood, the Patils twins and Lavender Brown, accompanied by a certain tigress, loitering together in the collegium's main common room wasn't unusual. It was something they'd taken to doing a lot over the latter half of the previous year, partially because unlike other students they got a heads-up and left shortly before the Nerf wars or pie-hurling started, partly because Padma and Luna were not welcome in their own house's common room, and partly because Harry, their most common topic of discussion, rarely went there.

He was a subject that cropped up frequently because Lavender and Parvati liked to giggle about him; Padma and Luna joined in because Padma liked to hang out with her twin sister and Luna found the whole thing enormously funny for some unknown Luna-type reason.

(The other three girls weren't sure if even Luna herself actually knew a lot of her reasons. They hadn't asked because, when that sort of subject came up, Luna tended to sadly shake her head and mutter things about nartwurblers in belfries, and that was just plain creepy.)

Parvati and Lavender had just gone into their latest giggle fit over some outrageous thing Harry may or may not have done when Padma said, "Uh-oh, Denebian Slime Devil incoming." which, although serving as a warning, stemmed from an in-joke; one of their mutual friends had once compared Ravenclaw prefect Alessa McKenna's face to said notoriously runny-boweled creature's posterior.

"Lovegood, Patil, we need a word." Ian Steiner, McKenna's co-prefect, said.

"Well go ahead then." Padma said.

"In private." McKenna said.

"Sorry, not gonna happen." Padma replied, shrugging. "You see, we don't like you and we definitely don't trust you, after all you messed with my mind and tried to mess with Luna's mind. So if you want to talk, you can do it right here, right now, or shove off."

"What the hell was Johnson playing at?" Steiner asked.

Luna flicked her eyes up from her book for a moment.

"Most people don't realise there's a war on." she said, then turned her attention back to her book. "Harry knows it, I know it, the Death Munchkins know it, but people like you refuse to see it. It's part of the background."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know, and like I said, it's part of the background, it's the situation we're in. I know Harry better than anyone else alive; he always assumes the worst, he has to, it's why he's still breathing. In his galaxy, there are two types of people; allies, and enemies. And the enemy of his ally is his enemy. Think about it, and ask yourself what your reaction to me and Padma breaking the rules of house solidarity we never agreed to follow looks like from the outside. I told you already, he always assumes the worst."

"Johnson was reacting like we were planning to kill you in your... wait, what?" McKenna cut off halfway through.

"You're exactly right, Harry is reacting like you're plotting to kill me and Padma in our sleep because he has absolutely no idea how far you'll take this thing. For all he knows it could easily go that far, and he's got a low opinion of people – he's seen the galaxy at it's absolute worst to the point that what you call hell he calls another day at the office."

"Okay, I get that much, but... why's he think this is so important?" Alessa asked, frankly bewildered.

Luna looked up from her book again.

"Harry," she said, "Is a very sensible and very cautious man. He has to be. He'd be dead if he wasn't. What does that tell you?"

"Are you saying he's treating this as being as... you're saying it is that important." Steiner said.

Luna nodded.

"Well, it certainly is from where I am." she said. "I like my memories being in one piece, thankyou very much, and I'm rather fond of breathing."

"You know perfectly well we don't go that far." McKenna stated.

"Actually, I don't." Luna informed her. "Bullying someone until they kill themselves is a sneaky sort of murder, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Ravenclaw has the highest suicide rate in Hogwarts."

"But why the Hell did Johnson shoot up the Ravenclaw common room with a heavy machine gun?"

"Because Harry takes people messing with his girls very, very personally. You may be interested to know I'm who talked him into aiming high."

"He'd machine-gun an entire common room over them being twats?" Padma asked, gobsmacked.

"Well, yes, actually." Luna told her, shrugging. "You see, when Harry takes something personally he starts eliminating the responsible parties."

"What the Hell's wrong with him?" Steiner boggled.

"It's called post-traumatic stress disorder." Luna told him. "He's about the most shellshocked person in known space; Garg's Landing was just the start, Harry's been shot at on sixty-five thousand eight hundred and twenty-six planets. And it's not paranoia when they really are out to get you – just over half of the galaxy wants Harry dead."

There was a long silence as her audience stared at her.

"Don't tell me you haven't read what's publicly available about him." Luna said, addressing Steiner and McKenna, both of whom slowly shook their heads.

"You really are stupid, aren't you?" Luna asked, irritated.

"Is that supposed to be an insult, Lovegood?" McKenna growled.

"If I ever insult you, you'll know about it; when I insult someone I make sure they stay insulted." Luna told her. "But that isn't here or there. The picture is painted, the colours are bold, one for each season of life I suppose. It no longer matters, the story is told; it's not going to change one thing."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steiner dubiously asked.

"It's from a song that hasn't been written yet." Luna told him. "You're looking at four people who have their minds made up. Tell me, Ian, what normally happens to people, especially teenage girls, who go out into this mad world we live in alone?"

McKenna and Steiner glanced at each other; neither replied.

"They get chewed up." Luna patiently stated. "And spat out."

"That's the whole point of House solidarity, Lovegood, especially in times like these." McKenna sighed.

"But that wasn't going to work for me and Padma, Padma because your rules expected her to leave her twin sister behind and me because you think me being crazy obviously means I'm stupid."

"Frankly, I don't know what the Hat was smoking when it put you in Ravenclaw in the first place." Steiner told her.

"Well once it'd taken me one second a House to convince Donald I belong in all four houses at once he gave up in disgust and asked me to pick a house. I said Ravenclaw because of the zorgmatoid of the plince, which before you let that patronising expression go too far means something very particular in someone else's language and no I won't tell you what language, people being annoying doesn't make me feel helpful."

"It's not house solidarity we've got a problem with anyway." Padma said. "It's house xenophobia. Now how about shoving off?"

"First you're going to have to forget a few-" McKenna started, her hand heading for her spell focus; but she got cut off.

"Proceed with your casting, Taragai." a thickly Kendarat-accented voice growled as an orangey-furred hand the size of a dinner plate dropped on McKenna's shoulder. "Make my day."

McKenna and Steiner whipped their heads round, and found themselves looking at four overly large and unimpressed Kenti with First Legion tattoos, who had been quietly listening in since Luna's remark about Harry acting like the Ravenclaws were plotting to kill her in her sleep.

The duo of sixth-years beat a hasty retreat.

"Thanks." Padma said.

"It matters not." the tiger-striped landwarrior rumbled, and withdrew along with his squadmates.

"... what was that about?" Lavender asked, bewildered.

Luna smiled.

"Oh, I might have mentioned to S'tarak'hai that I might need backup." she said.

"Hey Luna, was 'zorgmatoid of the plince' serious?" Padma asked.

"Well zorgmatoid is a particular sort of blue." Luna said, shrugging. "Orks believe the blue we call Ravenclaw blue and they call zorgmatoid is a very lucky sort of blue, you see, and when Orks believe something hard enough it works. And plince is just jacket in Barsoomian."

"I think you enjoy messing with people's heads just a bit too much, Luna Lovegood." Parvati told her.

"Well I have to admit it's rather fun." Luna mused. "You see when the Denebian Slime Devil goes to that conference on Ryza she's going to start boasting about in a couple of months, she's going to hear someone refer to her Ravenclaw windbreaker as zorgmatoid blue, and she's going to ask them what it means, then she's going to ask me how come I speak Ork, and when I tell her – truthfully, actually – that I don't, that's _really_ going to bake her noodle. And then when she finds out what plince means during a trip to Mars next year, and I tell her I don't speak Barsoomian either, I'm going to take a photograph of her expression and it'll take pride of place in my collection of funniest things I'll ever photographed."

"So if you don't speak Ork or Barsoomian how come you know what that means?"

"Because the Denebian Slime Devil's going to tell me what zorgmatoid means in about six months, then in about two years she's going to tell me what plince means, and the really funny thing is she won't realise she's how come I knew those words for absolutely ages."

"... Luna, I'm starting to believe you can be a bit of a bitch sometimes."

"Why thankyou, Padma."

"Hey Luna..." Parvati mused.

"Yes."

"Did you seriously go for Ravenclaw because you like the House colours?"

"Well yes, I was considering Hufflepuff for a while but since blue's my favourite colour and wasp stripes don't suit me I decided I'd be a Ravenclaw. What? It's as good a reason as any."

"Most people end up in which house they're in because the Sorting Hat said so, don't ask me why it put me in Gryffindor." Lavender remarked.

"Actually that's not as usual as you'd think." Luna told her. "I mean the Hat wanted Padma and Parvati both in Hufflepuff but they didn't want to go there because they think Puffs are creepy, Ravenclaw was what he called Padma's second-best and Parvati would have been there too but she decided that the Gryffindor boys are cuter so argued him out of that. In fact the only people in the CTMA who're where the Hat thinks they belong are Ron, Hermione, you, and Neville."

"Harry completely belongs in Gryffindor and Hermione probably should have been a Ravenclaw." Parvati said, notably not contradicting Luna's comment about the Sorting Hat having wanted her and Padma in Hufflepuff.

"No Harry doesn't, he completely belongs in Slytherin but decided that would be showing his hand too early, and Hermione's even braver than she is intelligent which is actually kind of scary if you look at it like that."

"What about, oh, I dunno, S'tarak'hai, Tara, the Walkers, everyone else?"

"Well S'tarak'hai should have been a Hufflepuff but talked the Hat into putting him in Slytherin because that's where he thought Tara would be, and he was right, that was where she should have been, but she talked the Hat into putting her somewhere S'tarak'hai wasn't because she was trying to avoid him and he put her in Gryffindor because Harry had offered to give Percy Weasley a few headaches in return for the Hat putting her there, and Bruce and Alice should have been Hufflepuffs but Alice threatened to use the Hat as toilet paper if it split her up from Tara and Bruce said he'd shoot it with a ray gun it if it split him up from his sister and his navigator. Fleggitt should have been a Ravenclaw but he talked the Hat into putting him in Slytherin because he thought Ravenclaw sounded too much like hard work, Ben should completely have been a Gryffindor but he talked the Hat into making him a Slytherin so he could smack them into shape, Michelle should have been a Hufflepuff but she wanted to stay with her big brother – I asked and the Hat says there's maybe one out of ten students end up where he thinks they should go. Even Malfoy's bodyguards aren't in the house they should have been in, it seems they both insisted on going to Slytherin because that's where the person they're loyal at was hell-bent on being."

"... I'm having difficulty imagining Crabbe and Goyle as Hufflepuffs." Padma said.

"Haven't you noticed how they go everywhere with Draco, do anything he asks, don't ask anything back, call him 'Boss' and get really jumpy about anyone hurting him?" Luna checked; she shook her head. "None of the four 'house traits' are necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. Intelligence can all too easily become intellectual snobbery or even something like Iceron. Courage doesn't mean good or bad, you can be courageous about a bad thing and the New Atlantean Army prove that pretty regular. And they also prove how you can be loyal to a bad thing."

"And the Slyths?"

"You know Susan Bones? Her aunt was in Slytherin and she's now the Chief of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and a lot of people say she's about the most honest cop in Clanspace that isn't called Samuel Vimes. Did you really need to ask?"

"... I suppose I didn't." Parvati muttered, noticing the considerable audience they'd gathered.

"Yeah." Luna said, nodding. "I've gotta go talk to someone about something important; I'll see you guys later."

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As Luna split ways with the Patil twins, Hermione was now back in Harry's room; Tara was by now over at the Blink Dog assisting Bruce in fitting some replacement parts they'd scrounged up, and Harry was rebuilding an obnoxiously large revolver while she kept half an eye on him out of a vague sort of interest.

She'd seen that model of gun before. It was top-break, had a three-shot cylinder, and was about the size of a sawn-off shotgun.

It was apparently new – there had still been shrinkwrap packaging on the grey plastic hard-case it came in – and having unpacked it, he'd immediately removed the barrel, cylinder, and several components from the breech, then proceeded to fit replacement parts that came in nondescript brown corrugated cardboard boxes with gnostic part numbers in black marker on them.

He'd then plumbed a mess of electronic parts into the foregrip, clamping them to the barrel and the front of the frame; this apparently entailed wiring something involving microswitches to the trigger mechanism, apparently intended to be triggered by the firing pin dropping.

After a while, he put his screwdriver down, aimed the revolver at the far side of the room, and squeezed the trigger; there was a nice solid kerCLICK as the cylinder rotated and the hammer dropped, and the gun jerked violently forwards.

"Nice and smooth." he said with a nod. "Well, I guess I can finish checking her on the firing range in the morning buuut it all looks good."

"Hmm?" Hermione hmmed, attention coming off her book.

"Howa Type 283 Earthshaker*." Harry explained. "They're usually chambered for 12-bore shotgun cartridges, they started out as an anti-supernatural weapon for the Jap equivalent of the SID, buuut I know a girl over in Chicago who's got into producing mod kits over the last couple years and when she looked at these babies, she thought 'Potential'. I'm just done rechambering this to one of her custom calibres, .75 Vincent Wildcat. She doesn't exactly advertise these babies across the pond, they're illegal as hell – classed as 'destructive devices' even though most of 'em go to in-the-know coppers in places like Manhattan, a frangible bullet in this beauty'll stop a werewolf or leech dead in it's tracks and I really do mean dead. On shotgun shells you need two or three to reliably drop a Brujah leech, for example. Even with Rally's loads this baby puts out a hell a lot more muzzle energy than a shotgun slug, and frangible bullets dump pretty much the whole lot straight into the target, it's like being hit by an exceptionally angry sledge hammer. NYPD love 'em."

"So what calibre is it you usually use when you're pointing one of those at the door?" Hermione asked.

".75 Vincent Wildcat. Not Rally's usual loads though – this is a nanohardened high-density barrel, cylinder and breech and she's now got kick-compensation off an Astartes bolt pistol, I load as hot as she can take and I've got a contact over in Barsoom City who custom-builds depleted uranium slugs for me, don't sweat it, they're shielded. With my ammo in her, she'll put a hole the size of your fist clean through a Rhino armoured carrier at a hundred yards. Top break, lever on the right above her grip breaks her action. Safety catch above the left of the grip, down for safe. I know a safety's unusual on a revolver but you really do not want a gun this size unsafed."

"Harry, if you pointing that at the door proved to be a good plan, where would the bullet stop?" Hermione asked.

"If the target wasn't boosted? In the exterior wall the other side of the dorms." Harry said, shrugging.

"... aren't you worried about hitting someone with the overpenetration?"

"That's why I line up on the partition between your room and the Walker twins' room, and anyway, given a choice between having a wall and an enemy in my room, or having no wall and no enemy either, I think I'd choose to blow the wall to bits. Besides, most of the people who come after me have enough subdermal armour that the bullet would penetrate then ricochet off the other side of their body and bounce around inside them. During the last Tyrannic War we called that effect 'the jellifier'. Good way to deal with tough bugs and nanocyborgs. Does a right number on traitor marines too if you get the penetration right, and... You know how sometimes something turns out to be exactly at the right balance point?"

"As in?" Hermione asked.

"As in, not too much or too little, works perfectly in a wide variety of situations? Like how a basic Reducto is a quick and easy way to blow something up, no matter how tough that something is, as long as you've got enough juice to feed it?"

"Well, I suppose so."

"For hitting armoured targets, an Earthshaker with Rally's rechamber and my ammo is that perfect balance." Harry said. "It's good for taking down anything from a Nalfer crab biocyborg to a mithril armoured jimcrack or even a Terminator-armour traitor, it only overpenetrates on soft targets and they're where you want a good old-fashioned colony rifle. Not much good as an anti-tank weapon against anything tougher than a Rhino, that's what railguns are for, but... ever seen an armoured vehicle disintegrate on being hit by a handgun? I have. Ferret scout car, one of these babies. Happy fun cloud of flying wreckage."

"I thought you were a big E-Mag fan." Hermione said.

Harry chuckled, withdrew his from it's holster, looked at it for a moment, and shook his head.

"This is good for shooting at people hiding behind, say, a tank. Hit someone wearing Astartes Mark 7 power armour and the slug will still be going fast enough to go through the Space Marine behind him along with the third one behind the second. An E-Mag could be used as the practical definition of overpenetration, fire her into a crowd of unaugmented unarmoured humans and it'll kill everyone in a line until it's had half a dozen thick stone walls get in the way. I love these beauties because they've got sheer power going for 'em, but they'll overpenetrate on anything short of a super-heavy tank. Basically, if it's big enough that an E-Mag won't overpenetrate, it's big enough that the E-Mag won't kill it. Sometimes that's good, if you need to shoot through armoured walls you can't pack much more fuck-the-wall into this little space. Most of the time, what the E-Mag does best is persuade recalcitrant bureaucrats to cooperate, it's amazing how helpful people become when all they can see is rifling."

He returned the outsized gun to it's holster.

"The E-Mag is, simply put, completely overpowered in most situations. Doesn't help that each shell costs as much as a brand new Porsche, compare that to, each round in my Earthshaker cost me three hundred quid, and each round in my little ol' Kalashnikov cost me five pence. Those nine mils in your H&K or my Calicos, about a pound for five rounds. Money talks, kiddo, and if you aren't careful what it'll say is 'goodbye'. That's why I try to save the expensive bullets for expensive targets."

"Huh." Hermione said, and then she frowned. "Harry, that means me practising costs, what, a hundred and forty pounds a week?"

"Roughly that, munitions prices tend to fluctuate a bit and it's always cheaper to buy in bulk. And, so?"

"So I hadn't really realised how expensive it is."

"Kid, with my income? That's the shrapnel you find in your pockets after a night down the boozer. I'm more-or-less loaded, remember."

"And you got that way by being a penny-pinching mercenary, remember?"

"True enough, but life's got it's expenses, and anyway making sure my girls can look after themselves when I'm not available has proved well worth the money more than once; you've probably noticed how busy I get from time to time." Harry said, dismissing that with a shrug.

Hermione nodded distractedly and they lapsed into silence, Harry proceeding to strip and clean an AK-47 while Hermione went back to her book.

"Hey, Harry." Hermione eventually said.

"Sup?"

"I've been thinking," she told him, "About various things you've said, about what you told me last night about your power level, and something doesn't add up."

"Oh yeah, what's that?"

"A while back you told me your reaction to being born was felt from thousands of light years away," she said, "And another time you told me you need power stabilisers or your arms catch fire... and I checked it out earlier today and, well, I know how much power that takes."

Harry paused and put the AK's bolt down.

"Yeah." he said. "I did. Worrying, isn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione warily asked.

"When I was a child, I showed every sign of being a powerhouse much like my mother." Harry told her "Then when I started training in magecraft on New Oz, we tested my power levels, and I'm two short steps away from being a squib – but my aura behaves like it's a hell a lot more powerful, the whole spontaneous arm-hair combustion thing, repeated childhood bouts of accidental magic, all the signs are there but the juice itself isn't."

"... oh."

Harry frowned distantly in the vague direction of the AK's bolt, which he'd just picked back up, and resumed cleaning.

"I know the fact I'm a Force adept and a ki adept will put a certain amount of cramp on my magical power, but that isn't enough to explain it all. It's one of the biggest questions of my life, kiddo; we checked everything we could think of and with Washu on the team that's fucking much, but we came up with precisely jack and shit, it just isn't there and I don't know why. Something tells me I'm really not going to like it when I find out what's actually going on."

"It could be one of the things you Obliviated yourself of."

"Carla told you about that, huh? Looks like she's been a naughty Carla then. Yeah, it could be, but I doubt it, I don't as a rule piss around with simexes – they're a real pain in the ass to revert."

"What's a simex when it's at home?"

"Simulated experience. Fake memory."

"... oh. Right." And they lapsed back into silence.

Having completed reassembling the AK-47, Harry set it down, paused, glanced around, then grunted to himself and went and sprawled on the bed with his head, as per usual, ending up in Hermione's lap.

"Whatcha reading?"

"Hmm? Oh." She tilted the book so he could see the cover.

It was bound in red leather, and had, 'MYTHOLOGY OF OLD ATLANTIS' stamped into the front in stark bold text.

"Pretty esoteric subject."

"I'm looking for information on this Leto Atraides guy." Hermione admitted.

Harry chuckled to himself, but said nothing more.

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It took precisely twenty-seven point six seconds for someone to respond to Luna's knock at the door. Luna could say that for certain; she'd counted.

That someone was Setsuna Meiuu; not exactly surprising or anything, since the door upon which Luna had knocked was the door to said luminary's quarters, but then Setsuna was one of the people whom Luna's precognition could not see or predict and that made her intriguing to interact with.

"Yes? Oh, it's you. What do you want?" the woman said, a slight note of distaste in her voice; she didn't much like Luna as the little blonde was one of the people whom Setsuna's precognition could not see or predict.

"I need to speak to your father." Luna said. "It's rather important."

"He's up in the Gryffindor dorms speaking to Omega Five." Setsuna said.

"I don't mean that him, I mean the other him, the one who went into your shadow an hour ago and hasn't come back out."

"Let her in, Setsuna." said a soft male voice from within the room; the Senshei grudgingly stepped out the way and gestured Luna in with a glare.

"Hello, Harry." Luna said.

Harry's face appeared in midair as he peeled an invisibility cloak away from it. He had bags under his eyes and was sorely in need of a shave.

"What now?" he growled. "At least this is less risky than bearding me in the corridor near Puff turf."

"Oh, nothing much." Luna said, sitting on the sofa he was near to; Katarina rested her enormous jaw on Luna's lap, schmoozing for skritches.

"Don't give me that shit, Lovegood. Way Setsuna regards you, you wouldn't be here if you weren't looking for something."

"I understand a certain old fart told you about a mock prophecy when you bearded him in his lair last year." Luna said.

"What about it?"

"Well Sekhmet's snakes aren't going to come out to play quite yet."

"I know, so what?"

"So the old fart was lying through his teeth when he told you that mock prophecy. Your father made that one up to help hide the real one."

That immediately got the attention of both Harry and Setsuna.

"Am I to take it you've got an angle on the real deal?"

"Well yes actually, you see all prophecies are stored in a special cellar underneath the Ministry of Magic building in Whitehall and I really think you'd better make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

Harry narrowed his eyes.

"Any details on the layout? Security measures? Patrol routes?"

Luna handed him a notepad. "It's all there, you'll have to brief me on it afterwards so I can remember it when I drew this."

"Right. Be seeing you." He whipped the cloak back over his face; the door opened a bit then slammed shut.

"Well, that's good then." Luna muttered.

Setsuna glared at her. "Should you really be risking the timeline like that?"

"Causality loops don't engender temporal paradox unless some idiot breaks them." Luna pointed out. "You should know that, you're your own grandmother after all."

"I don't know how you found that out, and I do not appreciate being reminded."

"Well that's actually rather simple." Luna said. "We both know we're right in the middle of a really big causality loop seeing as how Harry hasn't actually met your mother yet. He thinks you're still a virgin, he still doesn't know that your mother is also your daughter and I think he'd be rather cross if he found out."

"Are you trying to blackmail me, Lovegood?"

"Well yes, I am. Do you ever want out of that?"

The woman's glare intensified. "Allright Lovegood, what do you want?"

"I want you to persuade Harry that I really need to meet his boss."

Setsuna's eyes were by now slits.

"That's dangerous ground, Lovegood."

"That's important ground, Meiuu. We all want the same thing but for as long as we're working independent of each other there's a very good chance we'll be working at cross-purposes."

"I should kill you myself."

"Do you really think I didn't expect you to say that, and do you really think I don't have any insurance?" Luna asked, head cocked. "Your plan would get my soul eaten by a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch; I haven't really got an awful lot left to loose – so if I lose, everyone looses and it's already arranged for."

"You're bluffing."

"Can you really afford to find out the hard way if I'm not?"

Thunorg and Senshei of Time considered one another for a long moment, but the greeny-haired woman finally acquiesced the point with a sharp nod.

"Very well; I'll see what can be done."

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At much the same time, over at the Blink Dog, Bruce and Tara had been involved in replacing some hydraulics on the number 3 turbine vector plates when they received an interruption in the form of a throat-clearing noise coming from a glowering eight-foot sandy-furred sniper by the name of Reiana R'hara'tath.

"What?" Tara said, giving the towering catwoman an irritated look.

Reiana's glare deepened.

"Do you," she growled, "Have any idea what your little disappearing act did to my brother?"

"Piss off, sheila. We've had this argument before." Bruce instantly butted in.

Reiana glared at him. "I was not talking to you."

"Which part of this expression makes me look like I give a shit about that? This involved my crew so it's my business whatever you reckon. I heard section chapter and paragraph on all that identity bollocks from Catboy last year and I can't say I give a shit, this is my bloody starship and Tara's my bloody navigator so you bastards can find your own."

"It's okay, Bruce. I can handle this." Tara said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"OK, Nav."

"Do you have any idea," Tara continued, "What it was like? Never being able to go anywhere you wanted, always waiting for the next assassin, the politics, the power-games, those gormless inbred so-called nobles trying to get into my pants – that's not the life for me. Kendarat was never home, it was a prison. This," and she rested a hand on the Blink Dog's hull, "Is my home."

"You would throw away your birthright to play navigator on a cargo ship?"

"Birthright? All that means is me being a good little doll for something I never wanted to be part of. Don't talk to me about nobility or birthright, they aren't real. Getting yes-ma'amed and being treated like a prisoner in a gilded cage isn't the life I ever wanted – and this," and she patted the hull plate again, "Is. You're ignorant and you proved that the moment you called the Blink Dog a cargo ship. People who know the real deal talk about Tarai T'rash'gal – the real me – in the same breath as they talk about Han Solo. Those are real people, not those inbred cardboard cutouts from back on Kendarat, and that is real respect, not that fake shit I had stuffed down my throat when I was a kid. If people are going to respect me, I want it to be for something I've actually done, not for being born. Out there, people don't act like I'm made out of glass. They treat me like who and what I am – the navigator for one of the galaxy's top-five blockade runners."

"... what?"

"A couple months ago, we shot our way out of Azeroth Prime. How many ships have managed that since they threw that defence grid over the system? Oh, let me see, the Millennium Falcon, the Nebuchadnezzar, the Seeadler, the Megaera, us. That's IT. Everyone else who tried, died. You're looking at the ship that got three hundred and twelve Rishakana clanners off Sunfall during the bombardment; there are less than twenty ships that cannot be kept in or out of any system in known space, and you're looking at one of them. That, and not something you get for who your parents are or what colour your fur is, is what real respect is about."

"... I see." Her expression and tone of voice made it pretty apparent Reiana didn't.

"No you don't. We're like a wisp of smoke or a ghost; we cannot be contained or controlled. We go where we want and nothing can stop us; we've busted out of the best defence grids in the galaxy. I've got my friends and a starship that'll break a thousand gravities thrust; I've got everything I'll ever want right here and it doesn't matter who I was born as, it's amazing what a bunch of dye and some sense can do for a girl."

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In the guts of the Ministry of Magic and Offworld Affairs building in Whitehall, London, there is a room where hardly anyone ever goes and all is quiet and still.

This room contains shelf after shelf of fist-sized smoky-looking glass spheres, each marked by a small handwritten sign placed on the shelf in front of it.

One particular sphere had a sign reading, 'Trelawney, S P, to Dumbledore, A P W B, 1637hrs 26/6/1980. Voldemort? AND Unknown.'

A large, long-fingered hand clad in a black glove slipped out of nothingness, and carefully removed the sphere from it's place; the hand held it for a moment, as if the owner of the hand was considering it, and then slipped back into nothingness.

A few moments later, it reappeared, holding a hand grenade – a Mills bomb as used for decades by the British Army, in fact – which it carefully placed on the shelf where the sphere had been before retracting and reappearing with a spell focus; several castings later, the hand carefully removed the grenade's pin.

The fly handle remained in place.

One last casting, and the grenade shimmered, becoming a convincing duplicate of the glass sphere whose place it had taken. The hand started to withdrew back into nothingness, but paused halfway.

"Know I shouldn't." a man murmured. "But I can't not. This one's for you, Dad; enjoy."

The hand returned with a black ballpoint pen; this it used to add several sharply-delineated High Arcadian runes to the sign, three under 'Voldemort' and the remainder under 'Unknown.'

There was a less-than-pleasant chuckle and the hand withdrew; with that, all was quiet and still once more.

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – Well, having dithered as to whether to blow Tara's secret for a while, I finally decided, 'fuck it'.

* – This is Leon McNicol's three-shot top-break revolver from the original Bubblegum Crisis. I invented the gun's full designation and ammo; the ammo is named for it's designer, Irene 'Rally' Vincent, and the 'wildcat' is used to denote that it's a round using customized brass.

Howa is one of Japan's few firearms manufacturers; they make military weapons for the JSDF, including the Type 89 assault rifle and a licensed copy of the FN MAG general purpose machine gun. I decided to attach the Earthshaker to them as it seemed appropriate.

Doghead Out.


	7. Chapter 6

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_And when the sky begins to clear_

_And the sun it melts away my fear_

_I'll cry a silent weary tear_

_For those that need to love me..._

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The rest of the first week passed quickly.

The course load wasn't up to speed yet due to everyone getting settled back into the routine, staff included, and although by Friday Harry was wound as tight as a drum, nothing exceptional happened; the CTMA spent their evenings hanging out either at the summoning room or in the Gryffindor hangout, though S'tarak'hai seemed oddly distracted, as did the youngest Weasley and Harry's mother.

It was, Hermione mused as she sat at the CTMA table at Friday dinner, slightly odd seeing the startlingly-young-looking red-haired elf-maid across the room and remembering who she actually was.

The former mindwipe victim was, she noted, wearing the collar (necklace? Choker? Something like that?) Harry had left with her; it was largely similar to the one around Hermione's neck, but lacked the prominent ring that was, to Hermione's educated experience, used for attaching irritating things such as leashes.

Lily was chatting with a small group of other Hufflepuff first-years. The marks from the wound that'd taken the woman's memories away were clearly visible in the pair of massive holes punched through her left earlobe, each rimmed by a dense layer of scar tissue and each nearly big enough for S'tarak'hai to get his pinky finger through.

A large and long-fingered hand dropping on her shoulder jerked Hermione's train of thought away from the vicissitudes of the past as Harry sat down beside her; he gave her one of his weary half-smiles, and she smiled back as the clatter of chairs announced the arrival of the rest of the CTMA.

"Anything planned for the weekend?" Ron asked, arriving at the table.

"I've got something to sort out on Dachaigh Nuadh." Harry immediately replied. "Could get fairly involved."

"You'd better hurry up then, or leave it for a few days." Tara said. "There's a severe weather advisory out for An Sleamhnaich – they've got a hell of a storm coming in from the east, it's expected to hit in about nine hours. What? Oh come off it, These Island Days broadcasts on Dachaigh Nuadh a week earlier than anywhere else so I found me a Tapestry connection to the Clanworld triD network a while back, and they interrupted this morning's episode for the storm warning."

Hermione snorted. These Island Days was apparently a reality triD show secretively filmed in a fishing village on some feral world or another by an An Sleamhnaich-based company, that Tara had got into at some point over the summer; Hermione was pretty certain it was faked but then they'd had that argument before so she didn't elaborate on her snort.

"So. Gravball."

Oliver Woods had just walked over to the CTMA table and looked straight at a certain mercenary.

"What about it?" Harry asked, cocking his head.

"The tryouts for this year's team are Sunday afternoon." Oliver told him. "So are you going to be there or do I have to beg?"

"As long as nothing else comes up I'll be there, no need for begging Ollie."

"Count me and George in too." George Weasley said with a nod.

"Hey, I'm not George, you are." Fred said. "Count me and George in too."

"Cool, appreciated guys." Oliver said with a nod; he was long since used to the twins' identity-swapping shenanigans. "I just thought I'd warn you, I've been keeping an eye on the firsties' flight lessons and a couple pick-up games of slowball they got going and it looks like Angela and Katie are up for some stiff competition this year, though I haven't seen anyone who looks like they could take over from Harry."

Slowball was a sort of practise-for-fun gravball variant closely resembling the game competition gravball had evolved from. Nobody went for a pick-up lob-around game on a supersports jetcycle; instead, they either used low-performance rigs or personal levitation, but keeping an eye on that was a good way to spot potential gravball talent.

"Oliver, just to make things clear, if someone show up who's a better Seeker than Yours Truly bench me and keep the bikes." Harry said. "Sure I enjoy playing, but keeping that trophy the hell off Snape's mantlepiece takes priority, reckon we're all agreed on that."

"Like anyone's going to bench you, Johnson." Cedric Diggory, one of the Puff gravballers, who'd been arriving for dinner late, said, stopping near Oliver. "Gotta hand it to you, you're about the best Seeker I've ever played against."

"Thanks." Harry said. "Hey, you lot stick it to the Ravenclaws, we'll knock the snakes down a peg or two, and we'll see you at the finals, right?"

(Playing the Puffs had never been like playing the Slyths. The Puffs played hard but scrupulously fair, and any gravball rivalry with them immediately became friendly; it was just the way Puffs were.)

"Count on it, man." Cedric said with a grin.

"Hadn't you guys heard? They've changed the tournament setup so each team plays all three other teams, then the two highest-scoring teams meet up for a rematch." Oliver said.

"Huh; this'll be cool. When are we playing you lot?" Cedric asked.

"Well we're taking on the Claws for our October match, you guys are after the Snakes the game after that – first week in November – then we're playing you lot the first week in February. You've got a game with the Claws right before the Collegium breaks up for Christmas." Oliver told him. "Tell you what, we'll come along and root for ya when you're taking on the Snakes."

"Appreciated, reckon we'll come yell for Gryffindor in the October game long as you're showing us some good gravball." Cedric said, exchanging a companionable fist-pound with Oliver. "Hey, anyone fancy a mess-around slowball game tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'm up for that." Oliver immediately replied.

"Fraid I can't make it, I'm high-tailing it over to Dachaigh Nuadh this evening and I won't be back till early on Sunday." Harry said.

"Aw well, maybe next time then. Talking of which, I'm trying to arrange a friendly slowball tournament – pick-up teams, just for fun – for the weekends there aren't grav matches. Bring yourself, your enthusiasm and something to fly with and leave rivalries in the jetcycle hangers, that sort of thing." Cedric replied.

"Sounds fun, reckon I'll come check it out when I've got free time." Harry said with a nod.

"Whatcha doing on the Clanworld, Harry?" Oliver asked.

"I've got some old friends live over there." Harry said. "And I have reasons to suspect one of them – hard old broad called Slarka Brol – has been partially or fully mind-wiped."

"So you're going to check out if she's okay, huh?" Cedric asked.

"That's the plan, and if she isn't I am going to make someone seriously regret messing with her." Harry said. "She's a Garg's survivor."

Cedric nodded. "I hear ya, man. Well, catch you later." and he went ambling off towards where most of the Puffs gravball maniacs were gathered.

"... fuck." Harry muttered.

"Fuck what?" Oliver asked.

Harry angled a thumb over his shoulder in the direction Cedric had gone.

"Guy's the spitting image of a leech I used to know, sometimes gets difficult not reacting like he's Eddie Dead come back from the torched. Shouldn't hold it against the kid, but it's a mite interesting to tamp down the instinct to go for a twelve-gauge full of hardwood sabots whenever I see him."

"Eddie Dead?" Oliver blankly asked.

"Toreador vampire, master manipulator with a propensity for turning his victims then leaving 'em for the Sabbat when he got bored of 'em – it's a long story. Tried it with one of my Jews, I warned him the fuck off. Next time I caught up with the bastard he was trying it on with an old friend's great-granddaughter so I got rid of him with two hundred gallons of jet fuel and a white phos charge. Bastard shouldn't have wasted his only warning"

"Riiiight... So when are you flying out?" Oliver asked, shaking it off.

"I've got the Lucky Dragon – spelljamming junk with a couple little upgrades – down in Mallaig, I'll be riding over there in a couple of hours." Harry said with a shrug. "Don't sweat it, she's substantially faster than she looks, I'll be back in plenty enough time for the tryouts – planning on mooring her in the loch when I get back." He angled a thumb in the general direction of the lake between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.

"That's cool, I'll see you lot there." Oliver said, and headed off to meet up with the majority of the Gryff gravball maniacs.

"Slarka Brol?" Ben asked. "As in the Gnoll packmistress who set off a bomb in New Taz what, eight and a bit years ago?"

"Yeah, that's her. And don't even think about it Ben, I owe her bigtime and the guy she killed needed killing."

"Well mate, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that." Ben said with a shrug. "Couple of mates of mine took bad hits in the blast."

"And the only fatality was the guy who's car she rigged. He deserved it because when he tried to seize Navre as collateral for that loan he forgot that trying to mess with a Gnoll packmistress's kids is about the most stupid thing it's possible to do, especially when the mother is an asteroid miner who works with high explosives every day."

"... What exactly happened?" Hermione asked.

"Slarka's daughter's not the wisest kid in the galaxy, and she's bad with money." Harry explained. "She kept digging herself deeper and deeper into debt, until the point where she used herself as collateral on a loan from a New Taz loan-shark, using that money to pay off some of her other debts, then the deal she'd been trying to make fell through and she didn't have anything to pay him off with. Slarka got wind of it and planted a pipe bomb under the loan-shark's car's driver's seat, rigged to the ignition, right when he was about to go foreclose on Navre and sell her to fuck-knows-who. Let's just say that the loan-shark in question wound up sitting in a cloud going 'what the fuck was that', and what was left of his car was liberally spreaded across half a New Taz city block. No unintentional fatalities, numerous injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to severe. Slarka was through the wormhole and still running by the time the bomb went off, along with her boys – Navre's brothers, uncles, and father. They got as far as Shenth before their ore hauler gave up the ghost, and holed up in Garg's Landing two days before the jimcracks hit. Slarka was the only one from the whole pack who made it out alive. After the siege, Slarka and I tracked Navre down and got her out of under the Hutt she'd gone and got herself nabbed by. Shortly after that they had some sort of falling out, I don't know all the details but they haven't been on speaking terms for two years now – doesn't help they're both too proud to admit responsibility for pissing each other off. Navre's holed up at one of my little hideaways, keeping herself off the radar. Slarka's been crofting on Dachaigh Nuadh."

"She never needed to plant that bloody bomb in the first place mate, she should've just bought her daughter back off that bloody loan-shark."

"Are you off your trolley, Ben? Don't you have the faintest idea just how much money a young healthy female gnoll is worth to certain people? It's into twelve figures, and that's in Juraian marks! Look, Slarka's mine gang were only just making enough to keep those creaking wrecks they called ships operational, she had about enough spare to buy one used car. Billions of marks or ten dollars worth of cataclysmite paste, eight inches of steel pipe, two pipe caps, some inventive wiring, and a criminal record. Which is within reach for someone who isn't rich enough to buy a capital-class starship?"

"I thought asteroid mining was big money?" Ron asked.

"Well if you're phenomenally lucky it is. Or if you have a subspace boat and can work the Logan's World phlebotinum fields it is. If you're not phenomenally lucky and are running warp boats, it's hand-to-mouth and any laws that get in the way of keeping you and yours alive and flying are something that happens to other people."

Bruce was nodding. "Harry's right mate. Don't think of the Blink Dog as a normal owner-operator boat, she ain't. Most rockrats are lucky if they can pull a hundred gravities and if – IF, not when – they find something worth more than iron ore that's them hit the flamin' motherlode and downbound with the richest payload they've ever seen. Most of 'em struggle to keep flying almost as much as your average indy tramper crew."

"The lucky ones get rich quick," Tara suddenly said, "And the rest slave their guts out for years then die alone in the dark."

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**Disclaimer: There is no spoon.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 6: Brief interlude on Dachaigh Nuadh.**

**(In which further plot-thickening occurs.)**

"So, what's the plan?" Dinner being done with, Harry and Hermione had headed up to his room; he'd immediately sprawled on the bed, the Puma twins ensconcing themselves curled up against him at the limits of their tethers, while Hermione seated herself the wrong way round on the sofa, the back of which currently faced the bed.

"Guess I'd better race that storm to An Sleamhnaich." Harry sighed. "Dammit, when am I going to get some peace?"

"I wish I could tell you, Harry, I really do." Hermione told him.

"Heh... appreciate the sentiment, sei kara."

"I fancy going along with you."

"Hmm?" He sighed again. "Aw hell with it, sure."

"Cool." Hermione said; Harry grinned at her and messed her hair up.

"So we're taking the Lucky Dragon over, huh?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's the plan. Was thinking about taking my Tardis over but the Am authorities don't need to know my road-train's a Tardis."

"It's a what?"

"Well, it's technically a Tardis."

"What do you mean, technically? How can something 'technically' be a Tardis? I'd have thought it either was or wasn't."

"By being just the powerplant, drivetrain, nav systems and temporal shielding without actually having a Tardis bodyshell around them, or those fucking registration systems, there's a grand total of no governments who need to know when I am. Oh, and I most distinctly do not need my rig randomly turning into a phone box or budging it's interior around. What?"

"... you're saying you drive a jury-rigged time machine."

"Well yeah, so it's the Tardis equivalent of a Taliban wagon, so what?"

"Nothing much," Hermione mused, shaking her head, "It's just every time I think I've properly grasped the true depths of crazy that is you, I find out I'm wrong and you're actually even crazier than that."

"Sanity is overrated." Harry told her.

"Riiiight... Hey, Harry, I've been meaning to ask, what's a Gnoll anyway?"

"Product of yet another attempt to replicate Project A.M.E.R.A.I, they're a stable biomantic blend of human and hyena. Average lifespan hard to calculate because most Gnolls live fast and die young. Fully humanic-compatible, though hybrids are pretty unusual – most male Gnolls find female anything else enormously unattractive and most male anything else find Gnoll women juuust a little unnerving for certain hardware-related reasons. Anyway they're matriarchal, tendency to stick with fellow Gnolls, they almost universally hate Orkoids, they're usually okay with anyone else so long as the anyone else doesn't mess with a Gnoll's kids. They're tercels, the females pack about four times the testosterone and muscle mass of males, your average female Gnoll is heavy-built enough to make an Earther body-builder look like an advanced case of starvation, and they've got the most powerful unaugmented bite of any known Sahaldetic-compatible species – I've seen a gnoll packmistress bite straight through a fifteen millimetre steel reinforcement rod without messing her teeth up too badly. Anyway, we'd better get this show on the road." Harry got up, shrugging Anna and Uni off.

He spent a few minutes rooting around in assorted cupboards while muttering to himself, unearthing some pieces of equipment Hermione didn't offhand recognise; these he distributed around his person, still muttering, before straightening up with another sigh and going to untether his catgirls.

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It was the storm of the century.

It'd come in off the ocean to the east, pounding down on the lonely city like the fist of a god – nature's full ferocity backed by a sheet of driving rain, and the city of An Sleamhnaich was bearing the brunt of the storm.

The sea was ripped into a solid wall of white, not that you could see it; the downpour was so intense and the clouds so low visibility was reduced, effectively speaking, to nothing; even if you could focus past the screaming wind and the driving rain, you wouldn't have been able to see your own outstretched hand.

Inside the control centre at the starport, all was quiet, the whistle of the wind around the building barely audible as soft voices repeated the severe weather warning over and over again. The last ship in as the storm hit – an Imperial Juraiain Spacelines widebody – had turned over on the main runway and they still didn't have a casualty count as the typhoon was impeding rescue efforts.

"Dachaigh Nuadh STC," the comms crackled for the umpteenth time, "This is the League of Affiliated Miners and Free Traders cargo vessel LSS-27739 Lucky Dragon requesting permission to land at An Sleamhnaich. Be advised that we are a Deladarian vessel and will require aquatic docking facilities. Over."

"Negative on that LSS-27739 Lucky Dragon, we have a continent-wide severe weather pattern in progress covering all An Sleamhnaich approach routes; be advised that surface-level wind speed is 280 knotts gusting 340 north-northeast at the tower, temperature fifteen degrees Celsius, cloud ceiling zero, visibility effective zero, we've received reports of severe turbulence at the way up and are currently experiencing rain at a rate of a centimetre every eight seconds. Advise you stand off until the storm breaks. Over."

"Yeah, roger that Dachaigh Nuadh – I'd been hoping we'd beat the wind in. Requesting permission for geostationary orbit and to teleport personnel down as we have time-critical business. Hey, sounds like you've got a hell of a storm on your hands down there; you folks okay? Over."

"Roger that Lucky Dragon, you are granted permission for orbital approach, track 381, orbital parking constellation 41. And roger, we broke our hundred-year record wind speed about twenty minutes ago and our all-time record temperature low two minutes ago. Situation's currently as under control as it'll get till the storm breaks, thanks for asking. Over."

"Roger, commencing orbital approach. Over."

"Wow. Look at that thing – what a piece of shit, I'm surprised he's got teleportation gear on that scrap-heap." the assistant space traffic controller assigned to that approach quadrant remarked, peering at the orbital telescope screen.

"Did I hear you say 'Lucky Dragon'?" one of the other, significantly more experienced, STC staff asked.

"Yeah, LSS-27739 Lucky Dragon, home port Cowabunga, looks like a real heap of shit. Typical bloody Leaguers." the first said.

"That's no Leaguer flying coffin, Vel." the other replied, reaching for a secure commlink. "That's a Q-ship belonging to the man who killed Kami Asinara..."

"Dachaigh Nuadh STC, this is Kendarat Royal Flight 2178, we are inbound and looking good – requesting permission to land at An Sleamhnaich. Over." and the space traffic controllers leapt back into action, Vel recovering her mike.

"Negative on that Kendarat Royal Flight 2178, we have a continent-wide severe weather pattern in progress..."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Jesus." Harry said as the tropical cyclone came up from beneath Dachaigh Nuadh's horizon, visible through the windshield of the Lucky Dragon's squint wheelhouse. "Tara was right – that's one hell of a storm."

"Yeah, it looks even worse than the satellite readouts from here." Hermione agreed. Having seen An Sleamhnaich from space on a day that there wasn't a cloud from horizon to horizon even from that angle, she could tell what she was looking at; the sheer size of the storm that was battering the city was beyond anything she'd seen NASA photographs of. It covered the whole of the narrow sea between An Sleamhnaich and the 'other side', blotting out the whole of that neck of water between the two separating continents.

"Well, nothing for it, we'd better make orbit and get ready to port on down there."

"Are you sure going down into that lot is a good idea?"

"Damn straight, we're burning daylight kiddo." Harry switched something on, and tapped a few buttons.

"Briareos here," a gravely voice issued from the comms speakers, "Make with the talking."

"Bri! It's me." Harry said, flopping down on the couch at the back of the wheelhouse.

"Good to hear from you Sarge, I was just about to call you."

"Aw, not bad timing then, what's going down?"

"I'm afraid you were right; Slarka's been heavily Obliviated." the gravelly voice explained; this caused the Puma twins to get up and come over to Harry, crouching down each side of him and latching onto his shoulders.

"How far back has she lost?" Harry asked, ignoring the catgirls; he'd gone as stiff as a board.

"Approximately eight years, give or take a month. We can't fix the exact duration as we don't know the exact date-time she exited Thousand Kingdoms space and that's the last thing she remembers."

"... son-of-a..."

"Have you been in touch with Duke?"

"Yeah, got onto him same night as I tipped you guys off. Lockhart's holed up on Manhattan Island, Duke's keeping an eye on the bastard."

"Hmm... Do you have any evidence we might be able to use?"

"Hearsay and some conjecture based on comments of his, I'll get what I've got forwarded to you lot ASAP. Anything on your end?"

"Repeated security camera coverage showing her in this Lockhart character's company for a start, we've got multiple witness testimonies to her regaling him with war stories and they all come up negative for simex implantation. The best stuff we've got came off her computer; a friend of mine managed to recover a lot of deleted emails between Slarka and this Lockhart, all on the subject of Shenth. Angua's chasing up a couple of leads right now and we've got a friend looking into something on Earth, it shouldn't take much more to send that son-of-a-bitch down for a long time. See if you can get Duke to hold back till we've got everything we can at this end, right?"

"Okay, willdo."

"Sarge. There's something else and I don't want to risk it to subcomm. We need you over here sooner rather than later."

"How bad?"

"I don't think this classes as bad, but you're going to have to see it to believe it."

"Okay, well I'm in geostationary above An Sleamhnaich right now and can port down any time."

"Huh. Well, Deunan and I are holed up at Slarka's croft waiting out the storm, you sure you want to teleport into this little lot?"

"Ain't many options if it's as urgent as you're making out; I've already got clearance to port down, I'll be with you in two minutes."

"Understood; be careful, it's blowing one hell of a gale down here." Briareos said, and rang off.

"Hedwig, maintain orbit. Amy, get me teleport coordinates for Slarka's croft, got four to port down." Harry ordered.

"Prrek!"

"On it, Master."

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On the rugged coast of the narrow neck of sea that An Sleamhnaich rests upon, across the water from the city, there is the only other permanently inhabited stretch of land on the planet.

Scattered along that coastline are dozens of tiny communities ranging from a couple of dozen inhabitants to a couple of hundred. For all that you can clearly and directly see the city from here, it might as well be on a different planet; out here, everyone knows everyone else. City folks only come out for holidays, and with the city's high wages and low spaceline ticket prices, they're unusual, largely leaving the crofting communities to their inhabitants – a mix of survivalists, self-sufficiency advocates who practise what they preach, people who've lived here all their lives, and other similar nutters, hillbillies, and rednecks.

Financially speaking, these are the most unutterably dirt-poor people on the planet. The land's only really good for farming rocks, thus the only real source of income is the sea.

Not that anyone would be earning anything at sea today as the storm thundered down the newborn ocean; nothing could keep up with that, even a heavy groundwheeler would likely be turned over by the sheer ferocity of the typhoon. Every community along either coast was in lockdown today, shutters battened over windows to keep out the weather, buildings shuddering as the wind hammered against them.

In a stone-built house on a croft at the edge of one of those villages – a place called Sheildaig (Population: One hundred seventy-two, mostly so broke they used colony trucks to get around. Industries: Fishing, boat-building, not-entirely-legal distilling, and gossip. Exports: Fish, boats, and moonshine. Imports: Anything that wasn't fish, boats, or moonshine. One road in, one shop, one pub, one pier, one boatbuilders, no landing facilities or rail link. Local police force: Zero) – three people of radically different appearances sat and listened to the wind hammering against the eaves.

One was a humanic woman somewhere in her twenties. She was tall, athletic-looking, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, drop dead gorgeous, and clad in a smart blue-grey and black uniform with the markings of an An Sleamhnaich ESWAT officer.

The second was a massive full-conversion 'walkertank' cyborg, nine foot tall if he was an inch, with drab grey-brown impact-reactive plastics for skin and a weird cluster of sensors for a head. He too was clad in an ESWAT officer's uniform, only naturally significantly larger to match his immense cybernetic frame; unlike most cyborgs of his sheer size, he lacked any visible inbuilt weaponry.

The third was about five foot eight tall putting her a couple inches below the blonde woman, and got wider as she went up; her back, shoulders and arms were solid blocks of iron-hard muscle, she had an overall coat of mottled yellow-brown fur creased by a criss-cross network of scars, her face looked a weird blend of hyena and human, and the only way you could tell she was female was that nothing mammalian and male has an upper chest that sticks out in quite that unmistakable-to-a-human way, an effect set off by the beat-up grey singlet she was wearing.

There was an air of tension in the room, and not just due to the storm, as the cyborg lowered his hand.

"Hearing things again, Bri?" the blonde woman asked.

"Subcomm call from the Sarge." the big cyborg told her. "He says he'll be with us in two minutes."

"What the Hell's he flying?"

"That rat-rod Deladarian garbage scow of his; he's in geosynchronous right now and he's going to teleport down."

"This 'old friend' you been on about?" the hyena-woman checked.

"Exactly." the other two chorused.

"Port down in this lot, huh?" she muttered. "Boy's got stones."

"That's one thing the Sarge has no shortage of, Slarka, and when I get my hands on the motherfucker who made it so you don't remember I'll make him wish the Sarge had shot him." the blonde woman said.

Something banged on the door.

"Think that's debris." the hyena-woman said.

It banged again.

"No, not debris." the blonde woman said, and the big cyborg rose to his feet.

"I suspect that's the Sarge." he stated.

"You might as well let him in, boy." the hyena-woman grunted.

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The door crashed closed behind them, shutting out the screaming gale; Hermione glanced around, finding herself confronted by a truly odd tableau.

The door had been answered by a massive full-conversion cyborg, easily as big as S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, clad in a smoke-blue uniform jacket, what looked like a black non-tartan version of a kilt covered in pockets, a Sam Browne style gunbelt, and heavy-duty boots even bigger than a certain big Kenti's footwear. There were two other people in the room, seated on straight-backed chairs around the massive solid wood kitchen-style table; a gorgeous blonde human-looking woman dressed in a uniform matching that worn by the big cyborg, and a bipedal hyena-thing in a tank-top and battledress trousers.

The room itself wouldn't have looked hugely out of place in any British fishing or farming village; the walls were neatly plastered white, the furniture age-stained wood, and there was a black metal pot-bellied stove crackling away at one side of the room. Shelves inundated with nicknacks lined the walls; the only things that looked out of place were the several military-looking guns on hooks and the cheap holographic entertainment / communications centre sat in the corner.

"Slakra!" Harry declared, making a beeline for the table.

The hyena-thing's head whipped round, and it snapped "Who the fuck are you, boy?" in a voice that was, unlike with Kenti, recognisably female – gravely enough to sound like the aftermath of gargling unset concrete, but somewhere in the contralto range none the less.

"Oh Jesus, Slarka, what in the _fuck_ has that son-of-a-bitch _done_ to you?" Harry asked, his expression slipping and letting Hermione get a hint of just how upset he really was as he stopped dead in his tracks.

(The Puma twins, who had been shrugging off their raincoats, gave each other meaningful looks.)

"S'onea the important questions, ain't it boy, as is what in the fuck _you've_ been doing with me." the gnoll told him, and slapped the table. "Sit yer arse down boy, we need to talk."

Hermione took a long hard look at Slarka as Harry cautiously seated himself across the table from the gnoll.

Feminine she wasn't, though visibly (hell, voluptuously) female. Her battered grey-brown tank-top made the solid slabs of muscle she called shoulders and forearms very visible on top of accenting her somewhat expansive cleavage; she got wider as she went up, almost to the point of being carrot-shaped, and had a build that made Hermione's uncle Stan look like a stick figure; the Puma twins could have used her shoulders as a bench for all that she was barely as tall as Hermione. Her neck was another chunk of muscle, almost as thick around as a human man's thigh, her face was vaguely anthropomorphic but very blatantly hyena-like, her hair was a great shaggy mane in a ponytail even scruffier than Harry's, and she had an overall coat of spotted yellowy-brown fur criss-crossed by a jigsaw puzzle of fine white scars.

Other than the tank-top, she was wearing some sort of desert camouflage battledress trousers, combat boots, and a Wild West-style gunbelt with some kind of travel-stained blaster pistol holstered crossdraw on her right hip.

"Okay boy, where do I know you from?" the gnoll woman bluntly asked.

"We made it out of Garg's Landing together. Oh Christ, Slarka, I'm sorry. I should have stayed in better touch – maybe that way-"

"No point snivelling about might-have-been boy," the gnoll interrupted, leaning forwards and fixing Harry with a flat glare. "Tell me what happened to my boys, the fuzz won't."

"Sarge-" the cyborg started, but Harry rode over the top of him.

"Chug and Garak, mortar bomb. It was quick. Karth got in a sniper's sights. Nero caught a directional mine. Renkk was hit by a heavy laser three days before you got yourself blown up by a bounding mine. I don't know about Leroy or Sanna, Chug mentioned you'd already lost them when I arrived in the city but you never told me what happened."

"Aw hell, I knew they had to be dead, I'd never have left my boys behind if they still had breath in 'em, but..." The Gnoll grimaced and let out a sharp bark of laughter – once again, highlighting her resemblance to a hyena. "Girl's got to hope. Preciate knowing, boy; I needed to."

"I'm sorry, Slarka, I really am."

"I'll scream for 'em later, once you've explained this." the Gnoll woman stated, her face like a rock; she rose to her feet, walked over to the cradle in the corner, and lifted out a pair of babies, one with each arm.

They were tiny; neither could have been more than a few months old, and they looked even tinier in Slarka's hefty arms. Both were wearing smoke-grey dungarees, wee knitted booties, white T-shirts, and highly incongruous cheerful red bobble hats, making them look even more out of place cradled in the hard-as-nails Gnoll woman's massive arms – and their familial resemblance to Harry was unmistakable.

Disregarding their hyena-like features, they were the absolute spitting image of him, from the cut of their tiny chins to the jet black hair to the way one of them's head cocked when, opened dazzling jade-green eyes, the baby said "Nyaah?"

"Waddya think of that then, '_Dad_'?"

There was a crack like a gunshot; Harry had just snapped a sizeable chunk off the edge of the table.

The broken-off piece splintered into matchwood in seconds as his hands clenched and an ice-cold fire Hermione instantly recognised lit his eyes.

"Gilderoy Lockhart," he said, his voice flat and entirely too calm, "Is dead. So what if he doesn't know it yet, _he was dead the moment he laid eyes on you_."

"Leave this one to ESWAT, Sarge." the blonde policewoman said. "You got any idea what ordinary decent An Sleamhnaich criminals do to mindrapists?"

"Deunan. When that heap of shit touched my family, he made this very fucking _personal_, you read me?"

"Shut the hell up, boy." Slarka growled. "I wanna piece of the sack of crap who stole eight years standard a' my life and tried to take my little girls' daddy away from 'em."

"Understood." Harry told her. "...Fuck, after this I'd thought you wouldn't want me in your life. I'm... not the safest person to know."

"What, ashamed you fucked the Gnoll 'dick-girl', huh boy?"

"Takes two to tango, Slarka. I'm heavily boosted. We didn't do anything anyone involved wasn't cool with, and any time you want a repeat performance I'm game – it was fun."

"You ain't some kinda _pervert_ are ya, boy?"

"Yes I am, but not the sort you're worried about."

Slarka gave Hermione and the Puma twins' measuring looks. "I ain't nobody's fucking pet, boy."

"I'd take a ten-ren hit on anyone who tried to say you were. I know you've got no memory of it, but you saved me from getting my greenhorn ass blown sky-high thirty-five times back in Garg's."

"Hey boy, did I ever mention Navre?"

"You mentioned your daughter frequently, especially after she and you stopped talking to each other. You said she was why you had to leave New Taz, you killed a Leaguer loan shark for trying to sell her when she got behind on her repayments. I ended up busting her out of high security on Nal Hutta three years ago after she got herself in trouble again. She's living on my hoardworld these days."

"Hoardworld? You a dragon or... I wanna talk to Navre myself before I'll believe you or the pigs about _any_ of this shit, boy."

"Right. Hermione, Anna, Uni, keep Slarka company. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

"What the _fuck_ are you flying, or is _this_ yer fucking hoardworld?" Slarka growled.

"Tardis, Slarka, is the only way to travel."

"... huh. Hadn't figured you for a Time Lord, boy."

"Most people don't." Harry said, and left.

"Hey Bri, did you...?"

"Didn't know either, Deunan."

Slarka turned her yellow-eyed glare to Hermione and the Puma twins, and said, "Siddown, you lot. I'm gettin' a crick in my neck peerin' at you."

Hermione seated herself where Harry had been sitting, noting as she did so that the two catgirls seemed somewhat uncomfortable with chairs.

"... um, hi, I'm Hermione, Hermione Granger."

"Aw, switch that heap a' _shit_ off squirt, I speak Leaguer." the Gnoll woman growled, her lips abruptly in sync. "Fuck, can't _stand_ them things."

"Well, okay," Hermione said, and switched the universal translator off. "Sorry."

"Feh, that's better. So, what's your story then, squirt?" Slarka asked; the awake baby let out a complaining noise, causing the gnoll woman to pull the front of her tank-top up and start feeding said baby.

"Well, as I was saying my name's Hermione Granger, and I go to Collegium with Harry, at Hogwarts on Earth."

"And what she isn't saying is he owns her ass." one of the Puma twins helpfully provided, earning herself an irritated look from Hermione.

"His pet mage, huh? Funny; didn't figure him for the sort who'd go to a fuckin' college of weird glowin' shit, though the grow-yer-own pet mage figures. So, he a dragon, huh?" Slarka grunted.

"The boss is an Arcadian-cross weredragon." the other Puma twin stated, looking enormously pleased with herself about this.

"Dragons. Feh. Ain't never met no _dragons_ before, can't say I've ever wanted to... So, you got any idea what my daughter's doing on boyo's hoardworld? Got himself a pet gnoll, has he?"

"He said she could hide up there until the heat died down on Nal Hutta." the left-hand Puma twin explained. "That was four years ago."

"As far as we know it died down late last year, but she ain't got around to leaving yet, she says she likes it there." the right-hand Puma twin added.

"Would anyone mind telling me what a 'hoard world' is?" Hermione asked.

"It's a planet used by a greater dragon, such as your owner, as a lair." Briareos, who was still standing behind her, said; speaking English he had a faint mix of Scots and Australian accents. "I must admit I hadn't realised the Sarge had one."

"Well it's system's under a Fidelius." the right-hand Puma twin said before Hermione could finish getting into a snit about Harry being referred to as her owner.

"... how in the Gods' _name_ do you anchor a Fidelius ward big enough to _cover a star system?_" the blonde policewoman asked, her English-language accent proving similar to the big cyborg.

"The boss used one of the star's third planet's biggest moons as a ward core." the left-hand Puma twin explained, shrugging. "It's about the same mass as Tars Sahal'vana, orbiting a gas giant a few million kays outside of the planet's rings, and even deader than Renahara, it's too far outsystem for easy terraforming and it's make-up doesn't have enough ore to really be worth bothering with mining."

"Something like that has been done before, I'm given to understand the wards over the Arcadia system use a large Ort cloud object as their core." the big cyborg mused, hunkering down beside the table; squatting on the floor he was on a level with everyone else.

"Well, Prince Suza helped the boss throw those wards up after he won his star system off Braxa the Hutt, so..." the right-hand Puma twin said, mirroring her twin's shrug. "I guess they got the design material they needed from the Royal Arcadian palace library."

"Won it off a Hutt?" the blonde policewoman dubiously asked.

"Yeah, in a sabbac game, the stakes got kinda higher than anyone thought they would." the other Puma twin explained, shrugging expansively.

"What do you mean, 'used as a lair'?" Hermione asked Briareos, snatching a chance during the lull in the conversation; she'd forgotten her snit.

"A dragon's lair is, essentially, the dragon's home. They generally keep a substantial portion of their wealth there." the big cyborg explained. "Some dragons, such as the Sarge it seems, use an entire planet as a lair, and it's parent star-system as a defensive sphere. There's five thousand six hundred and eleven dragons known to have a hidden star system as their lair; with your owner, make that five thousand six hundred and twelve."

"If you're wondering why Hermione looks like she's smelled a long-time dead body it's because she doesn't like admitting she belongs to the boss." the further Puma twin from Hermione's position, being out of hitting range, helpfully provided.

The door chose that moment to crash open, admitting a bone-rattling blast of wind and rain and five people, one of whom was Harry; the other four were gnolls. Both babies made loud complaining noises about this.

Out of the four gnolls, one looked like a non-scarred and very damp version of Slarka dressed in a very similar outfit with the addition of a scruffy brown leather bomber jacket; the other three were smaller, shorter, narrower-shouldered, flat-chested, dressed in a mish-mash of combats and heavy-duty work clothes, and had AK-47's slung on their shoulder.

"_Mum!_" the big one declared, flinging her bomber jacket off in a great shower of loose water. "What the hell's _happened_, you okay, Harr says someone's been messing with yer _mind_ and-"

"Glad ta see you too, sweetie." Slarka said, pulling the other gnoll woman into a hug. "You gonna introduce yer ole mum to yer boys?"

"Mum, what the hell's happened? You met 'em _years_ back!"

"What's happened is I don't remember a damn thing a' the last eight years, Navre, seems some sack a' shit pretty-boy Earther tried ta mindwipe me."

"... When I get my hands on the bastard, he's _dead meat_."

"Get in line, squirt."

One of the smaller gnolls interrupted the resulting companionable silence with a polite cough.

"Ma'am, name's Turk." he said, in a soft tenor voice. "I'm yer daughter's husband, ma'am, an' this two's yer grandsons, Chug an' Thrash."

"Hi granma." the pair chorused.

"Well so someone managed ta get my tearaway girl to settle down an' grow herself a clan like a proper lady, huh? Good fer you, son."

"Mum," Navre said, "I know you don't remember none a' it, but... ah _hell_ I'm sorry 'bout all that mindless _shite_ I said last time we saw each other."

"Fergetaboutit, sweetie. What's done's done an' ain't nobody can change it." Slarka turned to Harry. "You and your pets better get going, boy. I got a need for a private chit-chat with my daughter; I'll be in touch."

Harry nodded sharply.

"Navre. Kerry's overhead with the Superhaul Contender and a megaton of coffee beans waiting for the storm to break so she can switch loads, I'll drop her a word to give you a ride home once you're done here." he said, and the younger gnoll woman nodded.

"Gotcha Harr, take it easy huh bro?"

"Yeah, you too. Hey Chug, Turk, Thrash – have a good 'un. Well, I'd better make tracks – we're burning daylight."

"Yeah, catch you later."

"Hey Sarge, don't be a stranger huh?" Deunan requested.

"Okay, okay, I'll try to remember to look you two up next time I'm on the Clanworld. Later all, we got lights to go before we sleep."

"See you around then Sarge." Deunan said with a nod.

"Yeah, have a good 'un." the big cyborg added, and then they were out the door into the teeth of the storm; Harry tugged a commset out his pocket.

"Amy? Four to port up."

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"There has been an intriguing _crinkle_ in the case of the Trelawney prophecy." Algernon Croaker said. His name, Dumbledore couldn't help but privately think, suited him; the man's voice was a rough croak.

"Oh? Do tell." Dumbledore said. The two men were currently meeting in Dumbledore's office over a small brandy, Croaker having arrived with the announcement that they needed to discuss something.

"The sphere has become nonsubstantial." Croaker said. "I trust you are aware that this only occurs when the target of a prophecy has been identified?"

"Indeed; most curious."

"Indeed, especially as we have so far been unable to positively identify the second subject. Curiouser still are the annotations found with the sphere." Croaker said.

"Oh? Do tell." Dumbledore requested, popping a lemon drop into his mouth.

"Yes, indeed. Two phrases in High Arcadian, one beneath the title of a certain Dark Lord and the other beneath the annotation concerning the unidentified second subject. The phrase appended to the Dark Lord reads, approximately of course, 'Old Lizard Lips' – my word, are you okay?"

"I beg your pardon." Dumbledore gasped between coughing up the lemon drop. "Terribly sorry."

"Those wretched sweets will likely be the death of you one day Albus, it does not take a prophet to foresee that." Croaker said, shaking his head and patting the Headmaster on the back.

"Well, I'm fine now, dratted thing went down the wrong way. Do continue, old boy."

Croaker inclined his head. "Yes, well, beneath the annotation concerning this unidentified 'man with white light in his hands' had been written, and the translation is of course rough, 'Never irritate a dragon for you are juicy and delicious lightly roasted'."

"... I see."

"Albus, I gather that this has some _significance_ to you?"

"Yes well, that second note is one variant on an old Arcadian saying. The first is likewise familiar to me; it is one of the numerous insulting nicknames used by a certain- I trust that this will go no further than this room?"

"Naturally."

"One of my current students, a mercenary by the name of Harry Johnson, has been known to refer to Voldemort as 'Old Lizard Lips' among a wide number of other uncomplimentary appellations."

"Harry Johnson... where is that name familiar from... Ah yes, also known as Darth Venger or Lord Stormclaw the Magnificent, correct?"

"Yes, among a wide array of other assumed names... Lord Stormclaw the Magnificent, Darth Venger, Slade Morley, Jason Lee, Danny Backlash, Dante Sparda, Harry Johnson, The Boy-Who-Lived. What do you suppose they share in common?"

"Perhaps that all are not likely worth trifling with?"

"Indeed, but they have a far more important connection."

"... I confess I fail to see it."

"Algernon, _they are one and the same man_."

Croaker went silent for some time, his sharply analytical mind going to work, and eventually let out a low whistle.

"Now that," he said, "Is very interesting indeed. I assume you mean Danny Backlash as in the leader of the Backlash Gang during Grindlewald's War? _Fascinating_. Time travel, correct? Are you aware of the vector?"

"I can but guess; he has two hearts, which tells a tale of it's own."

"Galliefryian? Curiouser and curiouser... Albus, Lily Potter was a Clanless weretiger of Deladarian descent, and James Potter a purebred Selak; how precisely does Galliefryian heritage fit into this all?"

"I have questioned a certain Time Lord contact of mine on that very subject; it seems that many of the physiological differences between Time Lord and human are a matter of biocybernetic augmentation." Dumbledore explained. "I cannot say how Harry was able to acquire this augmentation, nor what events led to his attendance of Prydonia Academy, but the results speak for themselves."

"Intriguing; I shall have to remember to inquire into this subject when next I encounter the Doctor." Croaker said.

"Yes well, I gather that the Doctor has a rather grave disliking for Mr Potter. Certain, ah, philosophical differences, shall we say." Dumbledore admitted.

"I cannot say I would expect a mercenary gunman with a known personal body count well into six figures would exactly be on the Doctor's Saimhain card list." Croaker mused. "The man is quite the pacifist, eh?"

"Indeed; I had gathered that impression from my brother's tales of travelling with the Doctor." Dumbledore confirmed.

"Oh? I was unaware Aberforth had travelled with the Doctor."

"It was shortly after he and I began attending Hogwarts, I do believe it is still in the Doctor's future as of the occasions you or I have encountered him."

"Ah; I see."

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Few things can out-pathetic a wet cat, and this is a trait that, to Hermione's educated experience, cats and catgirls share.

As, following a brief but highly unpleasant sort of disconnectedness Hermione was adamant that she would never, EVER, get used to, they rematerialised in the Lucky Dragon's cramped for'ards cargo hold, all four teleportees were soaked almost to the skin; the sheer ferocity of the storm had driven water down under their waterproof jackets, even as it whirled the skirts of said jackets up and around and everywhere, and now every single part of the four was dripping wet.

By the time they had squelched their way up to the wheelhouse and Harry had got on the comms to request permission for departure, the two catgirls had shed their raincoats, divested Hermione of hers, and proceeded to mob her in a pitiable shivering heap of elaborate misery, calculated patheticness, and Big Sad Eyes, that was frankly impossible to resist.

As for Harry, the moment he'd arrived at the helm he'd ditched his saturated trenchcoat and was now standing in the middle of the wheelhouse with a blank glare on his face, repeatedly popping his knuckles and occasionally muttering, grimacing, or twitching; the greatest amount of attention he'd paid to anyone else since they arrived onboard was to turn the temperature settings for the ship's onboard environment up by ten degrees Celsius; this had immediately caused a wave of warm air to come pouring out the grille in the middle of the wheelhouse floor, which triggered steam to start raising off most of the occupants and made the Puma twins start purring.

When Harry finally spoke, they were past the light barrier on their way outsystem and he'd settled into a quiet sort of fury.

"Y'know, Hermione," he said, glaring out the Lucky Dragon's wheelhouse into the shimmering blue light of the Cerenkov rainbow ahead, "I'm starting to wonder when worthless _fucks_ like Lockhart are finally going to get the idea that screwing with my people is a really. _Really. _Bad_. Plan_."

"... I dunno." Hermione admitted from somewhere in the pile of purring catgirls; two catgirls may not seem like enough to create a pile, but Anna and Uni are experts.

"Just... oh fuckin' hell, just makes me so... Who in the _fuck_ died and made Lockhart _emperor?_"

Hermione didn't reply to that. She didn't know what to say.

Instead, half-listening to him rant and rave about all the lurid details of what, exactly, he intended to do to Gilderoy Lockhart, and half-contemplating how, exactly, being used as a cushion by oversexed purring catgirls was so relaxing, she tried to get her head around why, exactly, learning he'd had children by Slarka had upset her so much.

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The storm had passed.

There was still a stiff wind going, but air traffic was a realistic proposition again; the drone of approaching starships was audible on the edge of hearing, with the wind in this direction the flightpaths in to An Sleamhnaich Interstellar went directly over the top of the sleepy crofting village called Sheildaig.

The two cops had left as soon as the storm tailed off enough to get their hovercar – a rather disreputable and overly noisy air-cushion specimen of the breed, done up in the colours of some no-longer-extant Humantown ghetto gang or another – off the ground without being blown to hell. Down at the small but comfortable waterside bar that served as the central meeting place for the entire village and wider community along this stretch of the coast, their colleagues were finishing up with taking witness statements; one of the pub's back rooms had been temporarily taken over as the first and only police station in Sheildaig's thousands of years of history.

And this left only the members of the Brol tribe at Slarka's croft.

"It's about time you got some luck back, Mum." Navre Brol, Slarka's first daughter and now a packmistress in her own right, said as she gazed down at her two half-sisters, who were giggling as they played with the thick wiry fur on the backs of her forearms.

Among gnolls, the male-to-female birth ratio is heavily skewed. For every female gnoll baby, there are around ten male babies; most gnoll packmistresses will be lucky to have more than one daughter in their lives.

"Gotta wonder if it **is** luck, or..." Slarka shook her head, "Somethin' about that Johnson boy _screams_ trouble an' I can't put my finger on what."

"You're wonderin' if Harr's been messin' with our heads huh Mum?"

"Somethin' like that, yeah. Settlin' down on some dragon's hidey-hole? Ain't the sorta thing I'd a' expected you to do. Ain't like you ever had much time fer xenos last I known."

"Gotta admit it's the sorta thing he'd do," Navre mused, "Don't _think_ he has cuz I ain't wearin' no collar, 'bout the first thing he does with the broads on the business end a' his mind-games, boy's got a thing about that. But, yeah, it's the sorta thing he'd do."

Slarka rose to her feet.

"Well I'm gonna let the banthas out an' feed the land-prawns, then we're gonna get over the big smoke an' check. Ain't no such thing as mind-fuckage they can't find if they look fer it."

"I don't think he has," her son-in-law piped up, "But Navre's right; it's the sorta thing he'd do, an' anyway how'd we know if he had?"

Slarka snorted.

"S' the way I'm thinking, son. Wanna give yer old mum-in-law us a hand with the beasts?"

Turk glanced at his wife, who nodded her permission, and he followed Slarka out the house.

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – If anyone's wondering about Harry's commentary about 'hardware-related reasons' and Slarka's 'dick-girl' remark, female hyenas have strikingly enormous clitorises – and a gnoll is, in this setting, a hybrid of human and hyena – so do the math.

Doghead Out.


	8. Chapter 7

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_Here comes the fallen angel_

_Here comes the long-dead god..._

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The reaction of the group of assorted students who were loitering on the bottom of the lawn near the edge of the loch late that Saturday morning as the Lucky Dragon touched down could be roughly summed up by the phrase 'What in the fuck is _that_?'

As the listing horror moored up at the jetty, several students wandered down to see what was going on; they were surprised to say the least when Harry and Hermione, both of whom had slept during the flight home, came out of the wheelhouse.

"What a piece of _shit_." One of the students in question – a lanky Gryffindor first-year with spikey blonde hair and an aristocratic face quite at odds with the dog-eared heavy-duty work clothes he was wearing – remarked.

"Maybe, but it's a _fast_ piece of shit." Harry said. "Okay Amy, lock her down. Full security."

"On it Master."

"Good." Harry stretched elaborately, causing his back to produce a string of pops and clicks. "Man jetlag blows goat."

"Ye gods, can't you get a hold of a boat with some class?" That was one of the Hufflepuff second-years – Susan Bones – who'd been sitting on the little half-moon beach beside the jetty dabbling her toes in the loch with some friends; she was one of the numerous girls whom Harry had at some point attempted to get into the pants of, and one of the several with whom he'd had a distinct lack of success.

"There's a time for class. When it's time for class I've got a high-performance racing sled. And there's a time for nondescript, and you don't get much more nondescript than that." Harry told her, angling a thumb at the Lucky Dragon.

"Nondescript? There isn't much that's nondescript about a rotten dust-cart."

"You haven't been doing your homework." came the rather unwelcome voice of Draco Malfoy. "The term, ladies and other life-forms, is 'Q-ship'."

"Er, stop me if I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but aren't Q-ships usually modified from light stock freighters and, you know, actually maintained?" Susan asked, giving the Lucky Dragon a dubious look.

"I've seen the specifications on that eyesore; that isn't rot, it's painted on. And it's listing because the hull's been intentionally unevenly weighted." Draco told her. "That ugly horror is in fact a Juraian-built Ryumyo-class heavy assault gunship clad in a beat-up Deladarian garbage scow disguise."

Harry snorted. "What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I have my sources and they do tend to be quite reliable, I'm aware of all three of your ships, Johnson – that thing, the Spider Mike, and the Anaconda. I'm just surprised you brought the most disreputable of the lot here." and with that Draco went swaggering away with his nose in the air.

"Hmph. Most informative." Harry muttered.

"What do you mean 'informative'?" Susan's friend Hannah Abbot dubiously asked. "I thought you were going to knock his block off!"

"Oh, nothing much. Malfoy's sources aren't as reliable as he thinks, that's all."

"I don't get it." Hannah admitted.

"Malfoy's under the impression I own _three_ ships. Well, his information is more than a little out of date. Unexpectedly helpful of him to identify the three he's thinking about; he's probably up to something."

"It could be a double-bluff?" Hermione half-asked.

"True enough; you're learning, kiddo."

"Is that thing seriously a Q-ship?" Susan asked, pointing at the Lucky Dragon.

"Well it'd defeat the whole purpose if I told you that, wouldn't it?" Harry asked with a wink and a smirk.

Susan gave him a searching look, then shook her head and started scrambling back down to the beach; Harry chuckled and headed for the castle.

"You're aware it's only a matter of time before everyone in the castle knows, aren't you Harry?" Hermione checked.

"Of course. That, Hermione m'girl, is the whole point."

"I don't get it."

"Well first off I'm not entirely comfortable with not having a serviceable starship within walking distance. Second off I like my starships wall-to-wall in guns. And third off a little bird recently told me the Lucky Dragon's cover's been blown wide open – that's okay, she worked admirably for the job I had her built for and she still works a charm for avoiding drawing attention out in the sticks. Just another fuck-ugly barely-functioning Leaguer tramp, nothing worth a second glance. And since fourth off according to said little bird I supposedly prefer to use that ship when it's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum... you get the picture."

"You want people on edge."

"Nah, more like giving fair warning that I'm a bit touchy."

"You own more than three ships, don't you Harry?"

Harry let out a dry chuckle.

"Just a little, sei kara. Just a little."

"You aren't going to tell me anything more than that exceptionally uninformative remark, are you?"

"There's a time and a place for truth, Hermione m'girl, and it is neither here nor now."

"I'm really starting to wonder when and where the time and place for truth will be."

"I wish I could tell you, Hermione, I really do – but then if wishes were whiskey we could all get pissed for free. Unfortunately it's not me who's calling the shots, and until my boss gives me the green light..." Harry shook his head as they entered the courtyard. "You get the picture."

"I'd have thought you'd have some sort of leeway?"

"Oh, course I do. But walls have ears if you get my drift."

"What's that supposed to-"

"Hermione. Drop the subject for a while."

"It's not forgotten about, Harry Johnson."

"I know, I know."

"The Anaconda? The Spider Mike?"

"Hmm? Oh. The Anaconda's a supersports sled, I use it when I want to look showy but can't afford to use a certain flying palace. The Spider Mike's a YT-1300 package courier, it's fast, doesn't raise eyebrows, and unlike the Lucky Dragon won't get chased out of empire secured space for either being a piece of mouldering shit or being a Q-ship. Neither of them have a hell of a lot of firepower, but they're good at what they do... Y'know, I half-suspect Malfoy's intel source is Galactipedia; those are the three ships listed on the page about me as Harry Johnson."

"Let me guess, because they're the three ships you don't mind everyone and his cat knowing you own?"

"Not a bad guess kiddo. Pet deckers are handy sometimes."

And they lapsed into silence as they entered the castle proper.

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**Disclaimer: There is no spoon.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 7: Crisis Zone.**

**(In which all Hell begins to break loose.)**

They were halfway back to the Gryffindor dorms when it happened.

"Durkadurkadurka bork bork bork me brains is like a rock durkadurka jihad durkadurkadurka bork!" Said an unexpected voice.

"Did you hear that?" Harry asked, faintly startled.

"Durkadurka where's me din-dins bork bork bork. Durkadurkadurkadurka jihad durkadurka bork!"

"Hear what?" Hermione asked.

"Marbles, marbles, marbles, durkadurkadurkadurkadurka bork bork bork!"

"That." Harry said, pointing in the direction the gibberish was coming from.

"Durkadurkadurka, lemming and spoooooooooon, bork."

"That hissing noise? I think it's the plumbing."

"Durkadurkadurka bork me go yum yum fill tum! Durkadurka bork bork!"

"Shit." Harry muttered. "Come on, Granger – let's get _out_ of here."

"Durkadurkadurkadurka bork bork jihad durkadurka!"

"Harry, what's wrong?"

"Durkadurkadurka bork bork bork durkadurka jihad bork!"

"I don't know."

"Durkadurka geronimo bork!"

A truly enormous crashing and banging and closely-spaced string of gunshots erupted behind them just as something brown went flying past with a loud unimpressed-cat screech, and the two spun round; Harry ducked round the corner with his handguns out and paused.

"Intriguing." he said.

"Owie owie owie bork, me offski durkadurkadurka bork."

There was a large puddle and a small amount of sizzling red-hot dragon's blood on the floor.

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Hermione glanced back, and found a sincerely unimpressed cat storming towards her; it was Mrs Norris, the Collegium caretaker's cat.

It marched furiously round the corner and stopped dead in it's tracks.

"Mreow?"

"I don't know." Harry said. He was staring fixedly at part of the wet pattern on the floor – to be specific, the damp bootprints

"Maces model B, size twelve." He said, whipping out a camera, and photographed them. "For reference, that's the same size and model as the boots I'm wearing right now."

Mrs Norris sniffed delicately at a scattering of large brass cartridge cases that had rolled into the corner of the wall; she meowed at Harry, who unearthed a polythene bag and collected the brass, carefully using the bag to scrape them off the floor before unrolling the bag back over the cartridges without touching them.

".60 Super Magnums." He told the cat. "There's E-Mag extractor marks on the cases – looks like she was extracting somewhat harder than usual. Unbranded brass, no serial number stamp on the firing pin indentations. Woo! They've got annular fractures to Hell and back, looks like this baby was loaded as hot as she can go. Yeah, whoever fired these wasn't fucking around. Did you see anything back there?"

Mrs Norris meowed and preened at him in great length; he nodded along while zeroing in on the bullet-scar on the wall.

"Figures," Harry said with a nod, picking remnants of bullet out of the wall, "Pity you didn't get a clear look at whatever the hell it was... niice, looks like this was a soft-tipped armour piercing slug. Not much left of the rifling marks, it smashed to hell in the stonework but I might be able to piece it back together... Are you sure there was something large and scaly?"

Mrs Norris nodded firmly and meowed again.

"Harry, don't tell me you understand the cat." Hermione said. Mrs Norris gave her an offended-cat look.

"And why shouldn't I? She's a hellcat-Gyrinx cross, ergo she's sapient, ergo mindspeech works on her. Seems she heard something rattling up at ceiling level, saw part of the ceiling opening and something scaly coming out, or rather she saw it's reflection in that puddle, then someone she's pretty sure was invisible grabbed her and flung her round the corner right before the shooting started. Oh, and apparently the invisible someone smelt strongly of unwashed armpits, cheap cigarettes, and Frenzon."

Mrs Norris firmly nodded, then mooched off, firing a quick meow over her shoulder as she left.

"Yeah, see you around." Harry distractedly replied, and went back to what he'd been doing – critically examining the scene.

"Harry, what's happening?" Hermione asked.

"What's happening is the bad feeling I've had all week just got worse. Something is seriously wrong round here, Hermione, and I've got a distinct feeling we're going to be up to our eyeballs in it. We'd better get out of here – can't shake the feeling we're being watched. The hell of it is..." He drifted off, sharply shook his head, grabbed Hermione by the ring on her wrist-iron, and hurried off towards the Gryffindor dorms while half-towing her.

"Hey, ow, slow down!"

"We've got to get the _fuck_ someplace secure Granger, now _shut up!_"

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On their arrival in Harry's digs, which had been abandoned until then, Harry immediately let go of Hermione's arm and pounced on his laptop.

Hermione promptly had an irritated look over his shoulder as he brought up a log-in screen and tapped a string of letters and numerals in; a prompt for genetic print popped up, and he angrily jabbed his thumb against a panel on the laptop. This caused the computer to emit a happy little chirp, and 'Login approved' appeared on the screen.

Harry grunted as the resulting screen – what looked to be a website headed by the phrase, 'Her Radiant Majesty's Secret Service' – popped up.

Hermione, her patience wearing thin, poked his shoulder.

"Hmm?" he muttered, clicking on 'Search'.

She poked him again.

"What?" he muttered, typing 'Parseltongue'.

She poked him again; this time he glanced up, and she irritatedly pointed at her own face.

Harry had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.

"You can talk again, Hermione. Sorry."

"What'd you do that for you arse?"

"Hermione. You are not allowed to reveal any of the contents of this current discussion to anyone other than myself. Ever."

"Well?"

"Ever heard the term 'Parselmouth'?"

"No, I haven't."

"I'm not hugely surprised; it's an unusual ability, and most of the people who have that ability take great pains to avoid people knowing about it, it's rep's been down the shitter since Horus. Anyway, a Parselmouth is someone who can speak what's called Parseltongue – in other words, they speak fluent snake."

"... So what's that got to do with anything?"

"That hissing noise you heard right before the shooting started."

"What about it?"

"That was someone gibbering in snake."

"... How'd you know that?"

"Oh for... I'm a Parselmouth, Hermione."

"So what?"

"So if Joe Sheep out there found me out they'd suddenly be making like I'm the second coming of fucking Horus, especially since that stupid cunt Sekhmet added the finishing touches."

"... that's nuts."

"Way the cookie crumbles, sei kara. Way the cookie crumbles."

Hermione sat back in contemplation; when she didn't say anything for a minute Harry went back to reading the website.

"So what's you being one of these 'parcel mouth' people got to do with what happened back there with Filch's cat?"

"Ah. Yeah. That. Look... Those empty cartridge cases. That's exactly what my favourite armour-piercing rounds leave. The damp bootprints. Same make and model of Maces as I usually wear. The slug was the real kicker. Copper-jacketed with an adamantium core and a soft tip. That's a custom slug, Hermione, I had to commission my technomancer buddy Agatha – real hard-case that broad, you'd like her – to cook 'em up for me, as far as I'm aware they're not on the market and I don't ever leave custom ammunition behind in any state other than 'Expended'. And the only other people Agatha cooks ammo up for are herself, her boyfriends, and her minions – and none of them use E-Mags. So either the gunman back there was my future self, or someone's managed to duplicate rounds purpose-built for me by Agatha Heterodyne – and the latter does not seem at all likely. I guess it could be a time-traveller who'll one day manage to pinch or inherit some of my custom ammo, but that's about as outlandish as someone copycatting Agatha. And need I mention our shooter was invisible despite the fact I ran a full sensor sweep on the way round that corner? Need I remind you who owns the most perfect invisibility device in known space?"

"So where is this leading?"

"Hermione, someone functionally invisible to every sensor in a customized top-of-the-range Ryza Heavy Industries nanocybernetic survey rig, who uses the exact same sort of exceedingly fucking unusual unbranded hot-loaded armour-piercing E-Mag rounds as I do and wears the same size and model of bike boots as I do, is running around this goddamned heap of rocks getting in gunfights with something that bleeds dragon blood when shot and doesn't go down from armour-piercing E-Mag hot-loads. Six round fired, five hits without overpenetration, target not down. If you can think of something much more 'gone wrong' than that then I'm fucked if I know what it is, understand? Assuming our shooter's my future self – and I'd bet good money on that, saw myself a couple weeks ago at the... anyway I can name six dragons straight off the top of my head who could pull this and want to grab you for themselves, and none of them would hesitate to eliminate me in the process since when they started making noises about a half-breed not being fit to possess an Omega weapon I started making noises about anal planet-buster implants. Something doesn't fit though, with what I could swear I was hearing... I need to talk to the old fart."

Anna and Uni chose that moment to come scrambling in the window; Harry logged his computer out, slammed it closed, and stood up.

"Anna. Uni. Find Ben and get him to get the gang together here. I'll be talking to the old fart."

With that, he jumped onto the roof; the duo of catgirls were right being him.

Hermione spent a long moment watching him hasten over to Albus Dumbledore's bedroom window, and then realised something important.

She could remember the log-in codes for whatever it was he'd been reading.

"If I was a DNA sample, where would I be...?"

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"Old man, we've got a situation."

Looking up from his desk – the paperwork involved in Lockhart's dismissal was proving a bit of a bitch, as was attempting to find a replacement – Albus Dumbledore found Harry Johnson squatting on the sill of the office window he'd left open.

"We do?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yeah, we do." Harry chucked a pair of plastic bags and a sheaf of holos onto the desk. "Waddya think of those?"

Dumbledore spent a moment examining them. Six almost-ruptured .60 Super Magnum cartridge cases, one exceedingly battered slug for the same. A small vial of what appeared to be dragon's blood. The holos showed a Collegium hallway with evidence of some sort of firefight – wet bootprints, a single bullet-scar in the wall, a small quantity of red-brown draconian blood.

"What has happened, Harry?"

"At 1123 hours I and Hermione were returning to the dorms when I overheard something. Voice, ranting in gibberish – lots of repetition of the phrases 'durkadurka' and 'bork' neither of which I've been able to attach meanings to, littered with references to eating something. I'd just made a strategic decision to evacuate when Mrs Norris was thrown round a nearby corner, and that's when the gunfire started. Six rounds fired, all E-Mag reports, definitely hot-loaded and from the sound of it using a customized muzzle brake. Sensors showed negative on traces as I entered the fire zone; whatever the source of the gibberish was, it had left by the time I was able to get a sensor picture of the scene. I found what you see in those holograms. Those cases all show hot-loading damage, and out of six rounds fired that is the only one that went stray. That means whatever our shooter was firing at took five direct hits, hot-loaded .60 Super Magnum, probably the same armour-piercing slugs, without overpenetration, and did not go down."

"... I see."

"There's more, old man. Both Hermione and Mrs Norris reported having heard a 'hissing noise' while I was hearing that gibberish. And I know what someone talking snake sound like to most people."

"Harry," Dumbledore said, "Are you telling me you're a Parselmouth?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying you fucking idiot! And I'm saying there's something that bleeds dragon blood, talks bullshit in snake, and likes to eat hellcat-Gyrinx cross, running around the guts of this pile of rocks."

Dumbledore sat back with a frown, and began examining the Collegium's ward-monitors.

"I see..." he said, sitting back and thoughtfully stroking his beard, "Harry, I confess I detected a necromantic aura remarkably similar to that borne by Mycroft Quirrel entering this establishment along with the students arriving for this term."

"Shit. Fuck. Tommy the Boy again and you're saying he's stuck on one of the students?"

"That explanation would indeed be plausible, though there are others. It is possible that... no. I can but pray I am wrong."

"Okay old man, what're we going to do about it?"

Dumbledore continued to stroke his beard. "Hmm... First we shall need to track down the source of the emanations I detected, and in doing so we shall need to ascertain the identity of their source; I confess they are somewhat more diffuse than those I detected last year. We shall have to check each student, Harry; I believe I shall be able to arrange this, but I would appreciate a little fire support in case Tom responds violently to being discovered."

"Gotcha. Hmph, that'll take a long fucking time, won't it?"

"I am entirely too aware of that, Harry."

"You realise Old Snake-Face is unlikely to wait around for us? He's a psychotic megalomaniac, not an idiot; strikes me as likely he'll cotton on to us looking for something and with his self-fixation he's likely to assume the truth."

"Indeed. I suspect it'd be provident if we were to explore other options... As you are the only Parselmouth on our side, I suppose it falls to you to track down the source of the 'voice' you overheard."

"I'm not convinced it was talking straight snake." Harry mused. "Hermione described it as a 'hissing noise', and that's not what translates to most of the snake language – it's mostly movement-based. That said I'm aware of what I sound like to beings with hearing when I'm talking snake myself – hissing noise. Then there's the total fucking gibberish it was talking, sounded something like 'durkadurkadurka bork' to me."

"Your supposition is that you overheard a fellow Parselmouth speaking in a foreign language, correct?"

"No, old man. Not that, Parseltongue speech – for want of a better term – is independent of language, I've met a few Parselmouths in my time, I've talked snake with assorted sapients who'd between 'em got fifteen different native languages and I only speak three of those native languages, right? And a couple times snake was the only common language, that's the problem with operating in Centauri space, smug bastards. And, well, out of the varied Parselmouths I've met three of 'em were stark staring insane, one to the point all he could talk in not-snake was moaning and gibbering yet soon as he started talking snake it all started being intelligible. See no matter how demented his burbling got it all translated. Fucking disturbing – poor fucker had literally looked Tzeentch in the eye – but I could follow it. This, frankly, didn't make any goddamn sense. Whatever the Hell I heard there..." Harry slowly shook his head.

"This is completely outside your experience, isn't it?" Dumbledore checked.

"Yeah, and that's pretty fucking unusual."

"You're jaded, Harry."

"I've been a lot of places I wish I never gone, I've seen a lot of things I wish I'd never seen, I know a lot of things I wish weren't real, and I've done a lot of things I wish had never needed done. All beside the point. This isn't anything I've ever encountered before, this isn't anything I can find any intel on, and you're not equipped to tell the difference."

"Indeed." Dumbledore said, frowning. "You're adamant that this is something new?"

"One hundred percent, I've never heard of anything like this before."

"Then I suppose there is little we can do beyond waiting. Please stay in touch."

"Right. I'll start nosing round the castle; you start checking out the kids and I'll arrange you a bit of suitably subtle backup. Hey, and one other thing?"

"What is it?"

"I intend to bring in some of my people. Thought I'd better clear it with you since we're supposed to be working together on this."

"I see; for what purpose?"

"There's something out there, old man, and whatever it is, it shrugged off five hot-loaded armour-piercing E-Mag slugs. Consider that there are three things smaller than an armoured vehicle I've seen do that – a Kryptonian body-builder, an overgrown carnifex, and a Bloodthirster."

"... You're saying you've fought a BLOODTHIRSTER?"

"Let's categorically _not_ talk about that. Whatever's crawling around the guts of this castle is bad news on THAT level, old man, and I want a lot of competent heavily-armed backup, understand? I intend to bring in some of my hoard guardians."

"How well-trained and equipped are they?"

"They're sufficient. I don't accept second-best from my girls, and nor for that matter do I accept second-best from my girls' equipment, understand?"

"There will not be any unfortunate incidents with the students or staff, I trust?"

"They're trained in non-lethal defensive measures. And they don't respond to taunts."

"Very well; I suppose you had better bring them in, then."

"Right. Well, we'd better get this show on the road - no fucking rest for the weary, huh?"

"Indeed; I am getting entirely too old for this shit."

"You? Too old? That'll be the day, old man. That'll be the day. Later."

And, with that, Harry jumped back out the window.

"Yes well," Dumbledore murmured, "And what, my boy, day shall that be?"

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"Alright mate, what's the program?" Ben asked. The entire CTMA, and a few friends such as Eiko Kent, Asari Chaos, and Lily Johnson, were now gathered in Harry's room, rendering it somewhat crowded.

"People," Harry said, "We're in a C.Z."

"A what?" Ron asked.

"A crisis zone." Eiko chirped up. "It's from American police terminology I think, it means anywhere in firing range of a suspected enemy."

"Roughly that, yeah." Harry confirmed, nodding. "There's something out there," he angled a thumb at the door, "And it's weird and pissed off. We're going to have to arrange a buddy system – nobody goes anywhere without one of our heavy-hitters, understand? Not even to take a dump. This isn't like last year, people. Last year was what we in the business call a passive situation – in other words, last year's enemy had specific goals, primarily non-combative, and was keeping a low profile. This year, different story. It's already gone live, we're already at the point of shots fired – primary objective is now a matter of making sure none of ours go home in a body-bag."

"Mind translating 'heavy hitter'?" Ron requested.

"Force adepts, special forces landwarriors, high-performance cyborgs, fully-qualified battle-mages, cybernetically augmented large predatory animals, superbeings."

"That makes for me, catboy and his mates, you, your pretty kitties, Kent there, Katarina, and that's about it right mate?" Ben checked.

"About the size of it, Ben." Harry confirmed.

"So I'm already a heavy-hitter, huh? Cool." Eiko mused.

"Goes with the genetics, Kent. I doubt I'll be the last to make that assumption." Harry told her. "Right. Now we're going to need an evacuation plan."

"Wait, what, _why_?" Lily asked.

"There's a good chance it'll all go to shit and we'll need to get the non-combatants – you included – the Hell out of here and someplace safe such as deep space aboard the Blink Dog." Harry fished an E-Mag magazine out of his trenchcoat, thumbed a round out, and handed it to her. "That is a custom-tooled .60 Super Magnum armour-piercing round. It's loaded as hot as a reinforced breech and barrel can take, and is capable of putting a hole the size of your fist clean through a current-day Earther main battle tank. Against anything less it's Overpenetration City. Whatever the Hell's out there ate five of these and they did not come out the other side, understand? The last thing I saw do that was a freaking Bloodthirster."

"Those are a myth." Tara said.

"That," Harry said, looking straight through her, "Is what they want you to think."

"... You're fucking with me."

"What's a Bloodthirster anyway?" Eiko asked.

"You don't want to know." Ben told her, a thousand-yard stare unnervingly reminiscent of Harry's appearing in his eyes. "Seriously sheila, you just _don't_ want to _know_."

"You're better off never _needing_ to know." Harry added. By now he seemed to be staring straight through the whole castle. "Thing before that I saw tank five of my armour-piercing E-Mag rounds was an overgrown carnifex; thing before _that_ was a Kryptonian lunatic named Zod, and he was the first thing smaller than an armoured vehicle I've ever _seen_ tank one of those rounds." He took the shell back off his mother and clicked it back into the magazine. "Whatever's out there is seriously fucking bad news, people."

"I'll get an evac plan hashed out with Bruce and Alice, and I'll fill everyone in." Tara said.

"Good," Harry agreed with a nod, "I've already got my hoard guardians on alert, they're set to provide security on all ingress points to any of the dorm blocks, the main common room, major throughfares, our summoning room, the Great Hall, and the lecture halls, and I've got a green light for it from the old man. You guys?"

"We have sufficient personnel to provide round-the-clock accompaniment to all CTMA members." S'tarak'hai stated, uncrossing his arms.

"Right, and Luna's got cover in the form of a certain sizeable cyborg cat. Ben? Kent?"

"I was not finished." S'tarak'hai said. "I wish to bring in further personnel; there is no such thing as enough manpower."

"I'll talk to the old man about that." Harry said, nodding.

"I'll stick with Michelle." Ben said.

"Right. Kent?"

"I'll see what I can do to look out for the other Gryffindor first-years."

"Right. Okay then people, we've got a plan. Now the waiting game begins."

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"You," said the ghost of Myrtle McKenna, "Really need to shave."

Her sullen audience – one Harry Johnson – didn't reply; instead, he glared and muttered something about exorcisms, which she ignored as she was used to it by now. He'd been hanging around near-constantly next to her toilet since a week before the Collegium year began.

"And I'd bet you really need a shower, you probably stink."

"Shut the fuck up McKenna, we've got company." He pulled his set of autosense goggles down, and whipped that annoyingly effective invisibility cloak of his over himself, vanishing without a trace.

Somewhat miffed by this, Myrtl said something highly impolite and nosedived into her toilet, hoping that the splash would get him.

It didn't; the cybernetically-augmented weredragon was now bracing between the walls of the toilet cubicle, and his eyes narrowed to slits when he heard someone say, "Open."

He was quite unaware of a second, fully-bearded and utterly muck-encrusted, invisible Harry squatting cat-like on top of a balcony wall outside the toilets; this second Harry checked his cyberbrain chrono, narrowed his eyes, sprouted a hellish grin, slid down a set of autosense goggles, and ghosted away, whispering "Game _on_, you son-of-a-bitch..."

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – Not much to say beyond, enjoy.

Doghead Out.


	9. Chapter 8

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_Fast as the wind  
The Invasion has begun  
Shaking the ground  
With a force of thousand guns  
First in the line of fire  
First into hostile land  
Tanks leading the way  
Leading the way..._

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Harry Johnson laughed out loud, and it wasn't his usual flat semi-humourless mocking bark either; it was sufficiently unusual that his dorm room's only two other current occupants, the Puma twins, who had been snoozing in the patch of sunlight between the gun rack and the massive duranium munitions safe to which they were tethered, immediately sat up.

"Well well well, clever girl." The slight tone of smug superiority – a bit like someone talking about a smart dog – was enough to cause Anna and Uni to get up and come see what he was going on about.

Peering over his shoulders, they found themselves looking at, displayed on the laptop's screen, a paused segment of playback from the concealed security cameras he had set up in the room. It showed Hermione giving the laptop a thoughtful look.

"What's she doing?" Uni warily asked.

"My cute lil' Hermione's all grown up now," Harry chuckled, feigning wiping tears from his eyes, "One moment she's a wide-eyed kid, the next she's plotting to hack Department 48. Feh, as if I'm going to leave my DNA laying around where just anyone can find it."

"So... what's the plan, Boss?" Anna asked. Neither catgirl was entirely sure why he found this funny; to their experience any business more serious than an attempt to hack the Thousand Kingdoms' classified intelligence servers would involve planet-busting warheads and/or Chthonic entities.

Harry angled a thumb at the screen.

"I want to know what she's looking for. Got my suspicions, but... heh, gonna be fun finding out."

"And we need some fun?" Uni asked, unsure how fun came into this.

"Damn straight," Harry confirmed, "I've got a distinct feeling we're going to be up to our eyeballs in not-fun sometime real soon."

"Boss, how's someone hacking Department 48 fun?"

"Pretty simple, Anna. Normally it'd be a valid reason to go in with all guns blazing. This, it's proof Hermione's finally learning to think outside the box. If she's sensible with it we won't let her know I cottoned on – until it's time to rub her nose in it. Girl needs to learn that anything you can get away with is fair game and she needs to learn exactly what it takes to get away with things like this. And anyway, if she's after what I think she's after, it demonstrates some unexpectedly clever thinking on her part."

"What do you think she's looking for?"

"My boss's identity, Uni."

Uni nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense; Department 48 have about the most cohesive report on him, well, second to Barsoom, and I guess Ryza Heavy Industries, but how would she know that?"

"She's probably guessing, sis."

"It's interesting how she's going straight for the top, isn't it?" Harry mused. "The info's available by following a chain of links from the Galactipedia page on known history of the pre-Atlantean era, Arkham University's Tapestry cluster has the paydata, but does she look there? Hell, she could easily have just asked Lovegood, the chances of our inoffensive-looking little blonde hippie not knowing aren't worth contemplating."

He repeated the segment's playback, and cocked his head.

"So. She wants a DNA sample, let's give her one."

"How're we gonna do that, Boss?" Uni asked.

By way of an answer, Harry fished a pack of condoms out of his desk drawer and tossed it onto the table with a smirk.

"Oh right, nookie." Anna said, nodding.

"Bout the size of it sweetheart." Harry agreed, smirk still in place. "That said there's something I need to get done first."

"Oh?" Uni asked, disappointed at the lack of immediate nookie, a reaction she shared with her sister.

"Yup." Harry said, nodding. "The old man wants some backup. I'll be getting him his backup immediately; I'm bringing in Ghost Division."

"... There's gonna be a hell of a lot of shooting involved, isn't there Boss?"

"I've got a distinct feeling there will, Anna. Anyway it's time I was someplace not listed; I'll be back in a couple hours, you two hold down the fort here while I'm gone. If Hermione comes past, distract her but be subtle about it, no rampaging catgirl piles, right? And if she needs fire support, do it."

"Aww..." Uni said, pouting at him; he chuckled and ruffled her hair.

"Mind if we use the computer, Boss?" Anna asked.

"Sure. But don't drop Granger any hints, understood?" Something Harry's voice had changed as he rose to his feet and they were no longer in companionably-chatting-with-the-Boss mode.

"Understood, Master." the twin catgirls chorused.

"Good girls." and he was off out the door.

"He's in a funny mood today." Uni said.

"Funny mood? Sis, he's wound as tight as a drum; we need to get him to relax a bit before he flips out again."

"Anna, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"

"I think so Uni, but how do we get the essential components when we're chained to the safe?"

"Weeelll, there's a pair of bolt cutters on the gun rack, I know where the keys are, and if we replace our chains, well, what the boss doesn't know won't hurt him, will it?"

"Hmm, true, we don't need to get him any more worked up. Okay Uni, I think we've got a plan."

"Yeah, we'd better edit the security camera footage." Uni agreed, and then the two of them started conspiratorially giggling as Anna got stuck into messing with Harry's laptop; they knew exactly how to get Harry to relax, and it was something they were as good at as they were at sowing mayhem – and, being unashamed pansexual nymphomaniacs, it was something that they thoroughly enjoyed.

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**Disclaimer: Who, me? Nah.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 8: Spreading the Word.**

**(In which reactions begin.)**

As Harry thundered away down the Hogwarts driveway (heading for someplace he had refused to identify, having responded to Hermione's request to accompany him with a flat, terse, 'No.') aboard the Fenrir, the remainder of the CTMA set to the next important task; warning their friends.

On Hermione's part, that meant first and foremost an internet-friend of long acquaintance by the name of Artemis Fowl.

A quick check of the Marauder's Map showed the Irish self-styled criminal mastermind to be lurking in a long-disused lecture hall on the fourth floor along with a dozen others, the only one of whom Hermione recognised the name of offhand being Blaise Zabini. Getting someone to accompany her from the Gryffindor hangout to there was simplicity itself; Harry had, after stonewalling her request to go with him, told her that if she was leaving the dorms before he got back, the keys to the Puma twins' tethers were the ones numbered 21 and 49 on the keyring on the hook on the wall behind his tri-D set, get my drift Granger, before going roaring off in a high dudgeon.

A flash of fire was the first thing she saw as she entered the room – semi-darkened – in which Artemis apparently was; as the flash was followed by a certain type of glow, she realised it had been her old friend lighting what appeared to be a cigar, even as she heard the unmistakable sound of a cocking handle being pulled and her training kicked in, sending her shoulder-rolling forwards with her H&K flying out of it's holster, and a moment later she was looking down her gunsights at a very surprised-looking Slytherin third-year guy whose name she couldn't for the life of her remember, who was looking back at her down the sights of a Kenti-built DK rifle.

Anna and Uni, she noted, had their guns out; in Anna's case a Howa Earthshaker, in Uni's case a League-built sub-machine gun. Anna had the massive three-shot revolver aimed at the Slytherin gunman's head; Uni was scanning the room with the vastly overgrown sub.

"Oh for Christ's sake, what's this?" Artemis complained, rising to his feet.

"That's my line, what the Hell Artemis?" Hermione complained.

"Hermione? What the... no, not important right now, safe that feckin' rifle Merch."

"You sure about that, boss?" the Slytherin third-year apparently named Merch asked.

"What are you waiting for old son, a written feckin' invitation? Safe the feckin' thing and stop pointing it at an old friend's head."

Apparently-called-Merch warily pointed the gun somewhere else; Hermione holstered the H&K, immediately finding herself being rounded on by Artemis

"And you, are you trying to get yourself killed?" the Irishman asked her.

Anna let out a highly amused-sounding snort. "Yeah right, that's a Kenti civil defence rifle, it fires copper-jacketed lead projectiles like outsize shotgun slugs and that breech can't take the pressure for high-velocity ammo – you can tell a high-velocity DK from the reinforcement ribs on the upper receiver just aft of the base of the barrel, and that receiver there sure ain't 'ribbed for her pleasure'. Now, I'm a custom-built billion-credit multifunction bio-type android with enough inbuilt armour that I can use an oxy-acetylene torch to shave my pussy, and my central nervous system uses technology derived from starship helm computer principles; if your bum-chum there pulled that cute little trigger I would be between that muzzle and Hermione before the sear finished releasing, and by the time the slug ricocheted off my gorgeous midriff the only things still alive or for that matter _identifiable_ in this room would be Hermione, me, and my sister."

"And if I joined in with Anna expressing her disapproval of stupid meatbags shooting at our bondsister, make that by the time the slug cleared the muzzle." Uni inserted. "What? .60 Crosstown has a higher muzzle velocity than .75 Vincent Wildcat, and they're both way, way faster than 27.48 mike-mike, may I remind you that DK's use subsonic ammunition?"

"Anna, Uni, quit it. I came down here to give Artemis a heads-up about whatever the hell it was me and Harry nearly ran into, not to get in a fight."

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"What's happening?" asked a voice, causing Bruce Walker to look up from the evacuation plans he, his sister and their navigator had been cooking up.

He found the speaker – Neville Longbottom – leaning on the wall beside the table they'd occupied in the corner of the Gryffindor hangout with a pensive look on his face; Bruce spent a moment wondering how come he hadn't noticed how big the soft-spoken Earther was getting, then shrugged it off.

"Hasn't Ron filled you in, mate?" he asked, abruptly remembering that Neville hadn't so far become an official CTMA member; he didn't have the comms patch yet.

"The carrot-topped methane machine's hammered." Neville told him. "He was halfway through a bottle of tequila when I got back from the greenhouses and I can't understand drunk Ron-ese unless I'm three sheets to the wind too."

"Harry ran into something weird earlier..." Alice began.

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"... Down near the third-floor toilets. It sounded like steam pipes or something – until the shooting started." Hermione explained. "By the time we got there, the only signs of anything was a bit of dragon blood and some expended cartridge cases. Well, and one bullet stuck in the wall."

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"Dragon's blood?" Susan Bones blankly asked.

"Yeah, and from where the empty cases, the stray slug and the blood patch were in Harry's holos, it must've been splashback." Ben said.

"What's 'splashback'?" Hannah Abbot asked; she looked faintly ill.

"Well when a bullet hits someone, breaks their skin, and doesn't go much further, a bit of blood gets sprayed back towards where the bullet came from."

"... oh."

"Uh, did you run the genetics?" Susan, who'd been taught some basic forensic procedures by her aunt, asked.

"Yeah, between us we ran the sample through the League, Thousand Kingdoms, Ryza Heavy Industries and Barsoomian databases, and couldn't find a match," Ben told her, "We've got fuck-all idea what's out there."

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"Whatever it is," Padma said, "Harry says it stopped five armour-piercing E-Mag shots dead in their tracks, apparently the last thing he saw that could do that was a, well, a Bloodthirster."

"You're saying Johnson's shot at a freaking _Bloodthirster_?"

"That's what he told us, Ben seems to have been involved in that too; you know the way Harry gets freaky eyes sometimes? Ben's went like that too."

"Jesus."

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"Are you fucking serious? Bloodthirsters are a myth."

"I am merely relaying it as Johnson told it, old chap." Fleggitt said. "The other things less sizeable than a tank he claims capable of stopping those rounds run to, and I quote, an 'overgrown carnifex' and a 'Kryptonian lunatic'."

"I see." Theodore Nott muttered, warily glancing at Draco.

"Myths are usually based in reality." Draco abruptly remarked. He'd gone even paler than usual. "What the hell is... oh, shit. We appreciate the heads-up, Nelkroddly."

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"You're not having me on this time are you?" Oliver Woods asked.

Fred and George grimly shook their heads.

"We don't joke about this kind of thing."

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"What're we going to do about it?" Neville asked.

"Good question, mate." Bruce said.

"We're working on evacuation plans." Tara said. "If – when – all hell breaks loose, we'll be using the Blink Dog to get the non-combatants out of here."

"Let me know once they're set and I'll fill my friends in."

"Okay mate." Bruce told him. "Willdo."

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Once he was sure Fleggitt was gone, Nott gave Malfoy a dubious look.

"You know something." he accused.

Draco chewed on that for a moment, and then grimaced.

"I'm starting to suspect Father has done something... unwise."

"Care to fill us in?"

"I have little more than conjecture, Father was muttering something about the Weasley girl and an unpleasant surprise of the permanent kind." Draco gave Nott a side-on look. "One thing I do know for certain is, Father has access to certain of the Dark Lord's personal effects, some of which represent a soul-toxin hazard... dash it all, Father didn't say a damn thing about loosing daemons in the Collegium!"

"Daemons? You think there's daemons running around this place?"

"Theo, I don't know, okay? But you heard Nelkroddly."

"You actually believe what he was saying?"

"I believe he believes what he was saying. And we both saw Potter go tearing off out of here; something's put the wind up him bigtime. Frankly, Theo, things that scare that son-of-a-bitch terrify me."

Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco's fiancée shared a round of wary looks,

"There's going to be a hell of a lot of shooting involved, isn't there?" Pansy asked.

"Seems that way to me." Draco told her.

"Guess we'd better tool up." Crabbe grunted.

Draco didn't reply to that; he simply nodded.

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The following morning, the arrival on campus of Harry's hoard guardians was accompanied by a striking lack of fanfare, in fact it happened during the Gryffindor gravball tryouts and began with a quartet of Ryza Heavy Industries Leman Russ scout-panzers coming storming flat-out up the road from Hogsmeade, fine showers of dust and grit spitting from beneath their tracks as they pounded across the bone-dry sun-bleached tarmac.

The four light tanks were closely followed by a small convoy of camouflage-painted Earther-built Scania articulated lorries accompanied by a small number of RH1NO armoured personnel carriers; they parked up in a neat formation on a disused starship hardstand (that had been torn up by a particularly gung-ho Kenti hotrodder some years earlier and, although the resulting craters had been filled with concrete, never repaired enough to take thruster blast) and disgorged a quantity of heavily armed women in drab camouflage battledress, who set about turning the trucks into an encampment.

The first to pay any attention was a Ravenclaw first-year, a Kenti by the name of Reiana S'rath'naia, who had been loitering on the lawn and trying to sum up the will to bother emailing the one person in all the galaxy (a neighbour's daughter from back home on the Plains of Death) she actually had reasons to like; the short, rather plain, bespectacled catgirl rapidly lost interest as there was nothing railway-related involved and went back to procrastinating.

Next to pay attention were Anna and Uni Puma, who had been let off their tethers by Harry shortly before the gravball tryouts, and came trooping out the courtyard, rapidly joining the half-assembled encampment; by this time, Reiana had drifted off into a private fantasy about becoming a staff technomancer for the River of Thunder Railroad back on Kendarat and maybe even getting to see to the preservation of the ten eldest locomotives in the Thousand Kingdoms.

By the time anyone not involved really registered what was going on, the dozen Scanias' trailers had been disassembled and rebuilt as the sort of tent-and-portakabin-and-scrim-net military encampment that would be recognised by just about anyone who'd been in any armed forces, anywhere, ever, complete with a signpost marked,

'DRAKENSHOLM:

16,187,428,800,000,000 kilometres.'

The not-involved someone, or rather someones – Susan Bones and Hannah Abbot – wandered over for a look-see and promptly found themselves met by a large dog – by the look of it a German Shepard, clad in some sort of camouflage body armour, a ballistic helmet in matching camo, dog-shaped ballistic goggles, and a black leather collar with dogtags and a couple of what looked like medals dangling from it – who pricked up his ears, trotted over to meet them, positioned himself between them and the encampment, and gave them one terse bark.

"Nemo! Schlaisse!" a contralto voice commanded, causing the dog to sit down on his haunches without his attention coming off the duo of Puffs, and a woman emerged from beneath a camouflage net.

She was dressed in battledress fatigues that, although neither Hannah nor Susan recognised it, were British Army S95 issue; she had an Old Atlantean boltgun (the compact 27.48mm-calibre version as issued to the Adeptus Soroitas and some Imperial Guard units, basically an Astartes sub-machine gun with different furniture rather than the 54.73mm grenade machine guns Imperial Space Marines called assault rifles) slung on her shoulder, a very generic pistol flamethrower on one hip, and an obnoxiously large combat knife on the other. There was your generic ballistic helmet on her head, equally generic body armour on the upper half of her, and her outfit (such as it was) was topped off by combat webbing; the only detail that broke the soldierly look was the coal-black collar (replete with stamped-in serial number and a chemically-blackened ring of the sort one would use to attach a leash) firmly locked around her throat.

"Oh," she said, pulling her sunglasses off, "That's what Nemo was getting excited about; vel canis," and she gave the Alsatian a pat on the back of the shoulders.

The big dog's tail thumped once; his eyes remained glued to the pair of Puffs.

"Uh, hi." Susan said. "What's going on?"

"Apparently this place is needing additional security, so the boss-man got onto HQ, and HQ got onto my CO, and here we are. Say, are you kids students here?" Where did she get off calling Susan and Hannah kids? She hardly looked older than them.

"Yes, we're Hufflepuffs, we're in second year; I'm Hannah Abbot and this is my best friend, Susan Bones."

"It's an honour; I'm SSFC Savianov, SWDF Third Assault Infantry scout-dogs, and this handsome feller's my buddy SGT-C Nemo."

The dog crisply touched his right forepaw to his forehead in a remarkable canine approximation of a salute.

"Um," Susan said, aware her aunt would want to know this ASAP, "Who's your 'boss-man'?"

Savianov sincerely startled her by laughing out loud.

"Kid," she said, "If you work it out you've earned the right to know. Nemo, favith." and with that she headed back in among the tents, the dog following her with one last glance over his shoulder at the two girls.

Hannah and Susan shared a faintly bemused look, then shrugged it off and headed for where their mates were hanging out by the loch.

They did, however, take note of the approach of Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Filius Flitwick, Pomodora Sprout, and Minerva McGonagall.

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"- Situation as it stands." the tall, powerfully-built, severe-looking, white-haired woman was just saying to her varied not-white-haired colleagues as the quartet of Collegium faculty seniors were ushered into the command tent. "Ah, Sir Albus Dumbledore I presume?"

"That I am." Dumbledore said, bowing flamboyantly; the white-haired woman smiled slightly for about a femtosecond and shook his hand.

He spent a moment contemplating her as she resumed speaking.

"Honoured to meet you, Sir Albus. I'm CNS Ryanov, SWDF Third Assault Infantry Fifth Section commanding officer; SWDF High Command has requested I place myself and my girls at your disposal. We number two hundred seventy-six all ranks, counting our scout dogs of course, with reinforcements on standby should circumstances warrant."

Severe cast to her face. Long fine scar running from the left-hand corner of her mouth up beyond her hairline above her left ear. DPM-print camouflage battledress, British Army issue from the look of it, with altered versions of a major's rank badges, several service stripes and two medals on the jacket's breast. Standardised combat boots, a pair of heavily-customised bolt pistols (Pistols? Pah! Rocket-launching sub-machine guns more like) in crossdraw holsters, combat boots, ballistic vest and helmet, and a drab black collar with stamped-in serial number around her throat. There wasn't much of anything in the way of a hint that this woman was in fact a senior member of Harry Johnson's hoard guardians.

"The honour is mine, madam." Dumbledore said. "These ladies and gentlemen are my four Heads of House; Severus Snape of House Slytherin, Filius Flitwick of House Ravenclaw, Pomodora Sprout of House Hufflepuff, and my deputy-head, Minerva McGonagall of House Gryffindor. Good to have you with us, CNS Ryanov."

"A pleasure. I have a suggested plan of personnel disposition," and Ryanov patted the table, above which a wireframe image of Hogwarts was floating.

"Are you quite certain this is strictly necessary, Albus?" Snape asked.

"Definitely." Dumbledore said. "The safety of our students is absolutely paramount, and if my suspicions are correct we are going to need all the help we can get."

"Perhaps." Snape muttered, peering at the hologram. "Hmm... I am correct that these green lines indicate patrol routes, whilst these green spheres indicate positions for the deployment of sentries?"

"Essentially correct, Sir. Each patrol team is to consist of three riflewomen, one dog-handler, and one scout-dog; each sentry team is to consist of three riflewomen and one support gunner. We will be rotating teams on an eight-hours-on, sixteen-hours-off basis; will that be acceptable?"

"Quite so." Dumbledore said.

"I propose additional sentry teams at the various common rooms and other such areas within which students are prone to congregate and loiter," Snape remarked, "Preferably with at least one dog per post; I assure you that attempting to direct those brats is unnervingly like herding cats."

Ryanov snorted. "So, your typical juves; understood. I'm given to understand we'll potentially be getting reinforcements from the Thousand Kingdoms in the not-so-distant future, correct?"

"Indeed; I have been discussing that possibility with my contacts. Likewise, I have been promised aid by an old friend; Elizabeth intends to dispatch a number of her Guardsmen to assist us here, she has promised me one hundred of her finest." Dumbledore said.

"Men from the Limeys' Guards regiments? Good to hear, they're a bunch of vicious bastards right after my own heart." Ryanov said with a nod. "Will they be requiring logistic support of any form? My quartermaster can provide if needs be."

"I confess I am unsure; you should discuss that with their commanding officer once they arrive here, they should be with us by the end of this coming week."

"Understood." Ryanov said, nodding sharply, and that was when Harry Johnson ducked into the tent.

"Boss." Ryanov said.

"Sara." Harry replied, nodding back.

"Am I took take it that these are your people, Johnson?" Snape growled.

"Don't sweat it, dog-breath. Shooting up Collegium staff sadly isn't in their mission profile, though it could be if you like."

The alchemy master glared and didn't reply.

"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore said with a nod, "Are you quite certain bringing in heavy elements such as those Leman Russ tanks is necessary?"

"Heavy elements? Old man, Russes aren't heavy elements. Maybe they were called MBT's back in the day, but these days they've been relegated to recon and infantry support; to class as a heavy element you need the hitting power to take on at least one Bolo on an even footing, and for Imperial armour that means super-heavies. I mean, I have heavy elements, there's Iron Maiden Division, they drive Baneblade MBTs. Napalm Death Division, same again. Metallica Division aka the Tank Girls, Stormhammer breakthrough tanks. Amazon Rock Division, Baneblades again. Ministry Division aka the Ministry of Gun, Shadowsword Spat-Gees. And so on; now _that_ is 'heavy elements'. They don't do subtle, when it's time for subtle I either fly solo or bring along troops such as Ryanov and her wrecking crew, subtlety is not exactly the strong point of a tank division."

"Incidentally," Ryanov chirped up, "My younger biological sister is a driver with the Tank Girls; she drives MasterBlaster, the unit's number thirty-six vehicle."

"Have you ever actually done something that called for firepower of that magnitude?" McGonagall dubiously asked.

Harry nodded sharply. "Last Tyrannic War; me and my girls took back Slegtrenk because the Kenti didn't have anything that could punch through the dimension-storm and I did. Fourth Battle of Macragge; I called my girls in to relieve my brothers, we made the Ecclesiarchists bleed for every millimetre of Ultramarine soil they took, and it's my girls who made sure my brothers held the line until Ryza rammed three Titan Legions down the bastards' gizzards. Final Dark Crusade; there's a reason the Chthonics never got a foothold on Barsoom. Covenant War; nobody but _nobody_ glasses planets my friends are on, should've seen those damn 'prophets' faces when we crashed their party with a division of Stormhammers. Plenty other times but I can't tell you about them; information's confidential."

"Define 'tank devision', perhaps?" Snape abruptly requested.

"Not less than fifty tanks, with support elements." Harry said.

"The Old Atlantean Empire never fielded super-heavies in such numbers."

"For a long time the ability of any given forge-world to build Baneblade-based armour was extremely rare; well, when he got out of his throne the Emperor made damn sure he had overwhelming firepower on his side. Where the Ecclesiarchists were fielding Russes the Loyalist side was fielding brand-new super-heavies; firepower doesn't come much more overwhelming than Baneblade MBT's force-dropping right on top of your HQ with Chapter-strength Astartes Terminator support, God was it satisfying. They called us heretics and the Emperor a falsification; in response we blasted the Ecclesiarchal Palace on Earth into a smoking hole in the ground with massed Shadowswords, then ten hours later we dropped a million super-heavy tanks on Ophelia VII along with a minimum of ten Termies per tank."

The varied Hogwarts faculty members took careful note of the way this statement made Ryanov wince.

"No mistake the popular slang term for the Emperor's reconquest of the Imperium translates as 'The Kerb-Stomp War', we blitzkrieged the fuck out the sons-of-bitches. Our firepower was completely overwhelming and we were using Cochrane space-time warping drive where they were using Gellar Immaterium-immersion drive, we had them out-gunned and out-manoeuvred at every stage and scale of the conflict. It was a foregone conclusion; those were good times." Harry mused.

"... I see." Snape muttered.

"You're a veritable phlebotinum-strike of historical data, aren't you?" Flitwick said; though phrased as a question, it wasn't one.

"What you call history I call places I've been, things I've done, and T-shirts I've got. Anyways, getting back to the point, the Russes are here because whatever we're dealing may have shrugged off E-Mag slugs but nothing and nobody biological shrugs off a 150-pounder squash-head – and a Leman Russ is small enough and light enough to operate in the Collegium's wider corridors."

"You honestly believe it'll come to that?"

"I don't know, McGee. But one way or another we are going to find out – and if it comes to that we'd damn better be ready, or we're all for it."

"Strange as it may seem, I concur." Snape said; he received a sharp nod from Harry as acceptance of that statement.

"Look out, it's apocalypse time, Harry and Severus just agreed about something."

"Oh shut the Hell up Pomodora, much as I may dislike the bastard a correct surmise is correct regardless of source." Snape snapped.

"Bastard? I know a vicar in Sutherland who can disprove that."

"You know what I mean, you noxious oversexed reptile!"

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"Okay Harry, what's going on?" Asked Oliver Woods.

Once again, most of the CTMA were camped out in Harry's digs; this time, they were joined by Neville Longbottom, three of his Puff friends, and the entirety of this year's Gryff gravball team, rendering the room more than a little crowded; Harry had spent the best part of an hour discussing troop dispositions with Dumbledore, Ryanov, and the four heads of Collegium houses while intermittently snarking at (or being snarked at by) Snape, and had been accosted by the Weasely twins on his way back to the dorms.

In truth and to his not inconsiderable surprise, he had found himself enjoying his on-again off-again running verbal duel with Severus Snape throughout the process of their conversation; it appeared that both alchemist and dragon thoroughly enjoyed arguing.

"Mitts off the rifle Spinnet; you can look but don't touch." Harry said, finally distracted from his musing; Alicia gave him a simultaneously irritated and apologetic look, and stopped poking at the elderly muzzle-loader in question.

"Fusspot."

"Don't you have a damn clue what you're looking at? She's a Baker rifle, one of the first truly accurate firearms of Earth's current era. Worth a pretty penny, and the skin oils in typical humanic hands are mildly corrosive, frequent handling can seriously damage fine pieces such as that weapon."

"You do realise you're talking about an old gun like it's a piece of art, don't you?" Alicia asked.

Harry snorted.

"Girl, gunsmithing is an art-form ergo a gun is a work of art. The Baker rifle was hand-made, as is essential with the fabrication technology of the time, and is one of the finest muzzle-loaded weapons ever produced. That example you're looking at is the Baker rifle used by no less a personage than Richard Sharpe during the Peninsula War, including I might note the 1809 upset with Clan Ash in Spain, she's the first Earther weapon known for certain to have been used to kill an Amerai since the Roman Empire went under. It took me a hell of a lot of effort and some probably-irresponsible operation of a Tardis to get a hold of her; this gun is a piece of history." Harry reached over with a rag and spent a moment cleaning off the fingerprints Alicia had left on the muzzle-loading rifle's barrel.

"I'm starting to think you're just a bit too fascinated by guns."

"My interest in weaponry of all forms started off for professional reasons; they're the primary tools of my job. Besides," and Harry carefully picked the Baker rifle up, "Each and every weapon you might come across has a tale to tell, if you know how to listen. A tale of battles lost and battles won – and a few of them, this gun included, can tell you how they proved the turning point of history."

"I say again, what's going on?" Oliver repeated himself.

"I thought the twins filled you in on our unidentified threat?" Harry asked, putting the Baker rifle back on it's stand.

"I wasn't asking about the whatever-it-is, it's those girls with guns I want to know about."

"You're under the impression they have something to do with me." Harry remarked, carefully cleaning off his own skin oils from the Baker rifle.

"Let me get this straight, we're talking about a couple hundred heavily-armed camouflage-clad bolter-toting hot birds with collars on, which part of that doesn't scream 'Harry'?"

Harry stared at Oliver for a long moment, then let out a bark of laughter and resumed polishing the muzzle-loading rifle.

"Heh. Yeah, they're mine."

"So what's the deal?"

"SWDF. Stormclaw's World Defence Forces, my hoard guardians."

"What's a hoard guardian anyway?" Eiko Kent asked.

"Any dragon's got a certain number of minions of some description," Harry said, shrugging, "First off to keep an eye on the dragon's great big shiny pile of filthy lucre when he's got business elsewhere, and second off as go-getters to get his scut-work done. Kobolds are a popular species for horde guardians and in fact I've got a clan of kobolds because it's traditional and they're useful little bastards despite the fact they stink as bad as Carnifex halitosis, but I frankly enjoy surrounding myself with pretty girls."

"I take it they're good at what they do?" Hermione checked.

"Yup; I don't accept second-best from or for my girls."

"Let me guess, they're not just here because of the whatever in the walls." Katy Bell said.

"You're bang on the money about that; fraid I can't tell you what their secondary and tertiary missions are, that information's confidential for reasons that'll become apparent when it's all over."

"I have been briefed and I concur with Johnson's statement." S'tarak'hai said.

"This is big, isn't it?" Alicia Spinnet asked.

"Very." Ben told her.

"If the old fart's suspicions are correct, it doesn't come much bigger than this. The situation's extremely dangerous and could all too easily get way, way worse." Harry said. "That's why I, Catboy and the old man are seeing about getting troops on the ground ASAP; we've got elements of the Kenti's Third Legion inbound, ETA of day after tomorrow, and the old fart had a word with an old friend of his by the name of Elizabeth, who had a word with her top generals and a certain Prime Minister, she's sending a combined detachment from her Guards regiments including tankers, from what I know they'll be with us by this time next week. My girls arrived first because I've had them on standby from the moment I got confirmation Old Mouldy isn't entirely dead."

He sighed and shook his head.

"If it comes to the crunch, I have Iron Maiden Division – my hoard guardians' panzer elite – on scramble alert. They can be with us in one hour. Hopefully it won't come to time for that, but if it does..."

"Better to be prepared and not need than to be unprepared and need, right." Eiko said.

"Got it in one, Kent. Got it in one."

"You named them after the band, didn't you?"

"Ron, all of my tank divisions are named after heavy metal bands. It seemed appropriate; metal doesn't come much heavier than a Baneblade."

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"Harry..." Hermione said. The combined CTMA-and-friends had got onto slightly less hair-raising subjects and chattered for a couple of hours, and then dispersed, leaving her alone in the room with Harry as the Puma twins and Carla were off down at the hoard guardians' encampment.

Harry looked up from his latest sheaf of intel (photocopies of the year's first Alchemy essay from the whole of House Slytherin, he had some handwriting to identify and authenticate) and said, "Hmm?"

"I've found out who Leto Atreides was." Hermione said.

"You have?"

"Harry, he's the Emperor of Old Atlantis, isn't he?"

"How'd you track the truth down, kiddo?"

"I'd rather not say."

He considered that for a long moment, then let out a bark of laughter.

"Have you been a naughty girl, Hermione?"

She glared at him, causing another bark of laughter.

"Heh. Hope you did something I'd do," and as she went bright red he thought back to what his security logs had caught;

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He'd been checking the logs on a regular basis since the get-go; when you've got multimillion-pound collector's items and firepower up to and including surface-to-orbit weaponry stowed in your college dorm keeping a close watch on security is simply prudence. When his routine checks caught Hermione searching for a sample of his DNA, that had become checking directly after every occasion he left the room unattended, and it hadn't taken her long to make her move; while he and the Puma twins were getting Ryanov and company situated, she'd been in his room getting her little hacking run done.

It took her less than a minute to locate the used condom he (with assistance from the Puma twins) had planted in his wastepaper basket; she still had a lot to learn, as if he was going to leave a DNA sample laying around by mistake.

As he watched her, having evidenced disgust while handling the condom, carefully type 'Leto Atraides' into Department 48's search engine he couldn't keep the slightly smug superior look off his face; successfully predicting her was eminently satisfying.

"And I called it." he said.

"What in the Emperor's name is that girl playing at?" Sara Ryanov asked.

"Got it in one, Sara. Got it in one; that's exactly what she's looking at. The Emperor's name."

Sara gave him a stunned look; on the security playback, Hermione sat back with a matching expression on her face.

"You know the Emperor's given name?" Sara blankly asked.

"Indeed. Leto Paoul Atraides Junior. Are you forgetting exactly who got him out of his throne back when, and exactly who gave your order to me once we'd finished kicking the shit out of you with a thousand tank battalions?"

"I... forgive me, I had never thought through the ramifications..."

"No forgiveness necessary Sara, you're hardly unusual in experiencing that particular mental disconnect. To you and most like you, the Emperor is a deity. To a select few, he is a man. A powerful leader, true, someone we'll shake the galaxy for, true, the finest man I've ever known, true, but at the same time no more nor less than a man."

"What about that girl, what's her significance – if I might be permitted to know?"

"That information is strictly need-to-know and frankly, Sara, you don't need to know. I've got a list of names, of people I'm allowed to tell Hermione's purpose. It contains myself, Lord Vader, my daughter – you know who she is, don't you? The Guardian of Time? The Dragon King, Washu Hakubi, Yoda, the Fabricator-General, half a dozen people – Primarchs and the Emperor's biological great-granddaughter – whom I'm pretty sure are dead, and another nine I've either never met or never had a chance to tell, some of whom I don't actually know who are; Ranma Jaku Saotome, he's the Heir to Clan Saotome, Xian Pu O'Conner and what a Chinese-Irish heavy metal singer-songwriter-guitarist has to do with this I don't know, Victor von Doom as in the Latverian dictator, Bruce Wayne aka Batman, major American industrialist who moonlights as a superhero, Tony Stark aka Iron Man, much the same story as Wayne but wearing power armour, Clark Kent aka Superman, he's what passes for leadership among what's left of the Kryptonians these days, Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman, she's descended from another order much like yours that more-or-less managed to survive the Imperium's collapse, Alexander Lavelle Harris and I don't have the faintest damn clue who he is, Elizabeth Anne Summers, only thing I know about her is that Steve Rogers aka Captain America has an illegitimate daughter of that name, Logan aka Wolverine and again I haven't any idea who he is though word on the grapevine is he's some kind of supernatural Earther vigilante who's wanted for homicide in two dozen countries. That's it. Nobody, and I really do mean NOBODY, else comes under 'need to know'."

"I suppose you want me to take your word for that?"

"If it's what it takes to convince you, the boss can tell you that, face-to-face. Remember where we are and think through the ramifications."

Sara's eyes widened fractionally, and she said, "... Oh."

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"You're right on the money, kiddo; my boss is the Emperor."

"This really is the big leagues, isn't it?" Hermione asked.

"It doesn't come any bigger than this. Period."

"Harry, how? Why?"

"That's a long and complex story, and not something I'm allowed to go into. All I'm going to say, all I'm allowed to say, is that this is the biggest thing that's happened in this galaxy since... since the Emperor got out of his throne. I wasn't joking when I said we're going to change the galaxy, Hermione, and I wasn't making shit up. Me, the Emperor, our allies – we don't much like the ant-farm power-game that's going on out there. So we're changing the rules."

"Who's on our side, Harry?"

"The League. The Kenti. The Klingons. The Mechanicus. Lord Vader. Yoda. Gringotts. The Dragon King. About a third of the Amerai's Great Clans – Saotome, Hope, Areotha, Scunamara, in particular. Clan Rishakana was on our side, but... God I miss Cyan. A few Imperial remnants. Everyone else is either the enemy or doesn't know the first damn thing about what we're doing and frankly doesn't need to know. Not until it's too late for any pea-brained bastard to stop us."

"... Oh."

"That's not to say your average were or furball or pastie-head or whatever needs to know – this is straight from the top, there are two Kenti in this galaxy who know about the Plan, one's their Queen and the other's catboy's dad. Ben knows about it, his old man doesn't – Chaos is too scatterbrained to tell about this, nice guy but he's got a mind like a leaky sieve, that said Nenk Deketh, his self-assigned clue, Ben briefed her. The Klingon Emperor knows about it, nobody else in Klingon space knows. Out of the AdMech the Chairman of Ryza Heavy Industries and the Fabricator-General of Barsoom know, that's it. I've got no idea whether Vader's told anyone else, but I doubt it. Well, he may have told his son some bits and pieces. Yoda definitely hasn't told anyone, he's a cagey little bastard at the best of times. Chairman Shatteraxe knows, the rest of Gringotts don't need to know anything more than enough bits and scraps to get their job done. The Dragon King's told Prince Suza and I think the Queen Mum knows. Clanlords Akira, Shi'voa, T-Jam and Arleth definitely know and I think they've filled in some of their high-level operatives like, say, Wukong. I know for a fact Lady Cyan Rishakana hadn't told a damn soul before fucking Daarak got her. There's maybe a dozen others scattered throughout known space, two dozen tops, not counting people like Luna Lovegood and I can't say whose side the galaxy's thunorgs are on. Probably their own, excepting Setsuna, she's on the Emperor's side."

"What's Luna got to do with this?"

"Her? She knows everything, inclusive. The trick is getting her to admit to it and actually tell anyone anything useful. She's got her own plan and I don't know whether or not it's compatible with the boss's plan – though frankly I'm going to have to find out."

"Where does Voldemort come into all this?"

"Him? So far, we don't know. We do know he has to be stopped – we lose this planet, we lose the galaxy. We know he's got connections with at least three enemy factions – the Nalfers, Clan Drakul, and Orochimaru – and we suspect he's connected to the rest of Gothwrain Drakul's power bloc, possibly a few other enemy factions, we know for damn certain it's him who turned the Clan Daarak Civil War in Brendan Daarak's favour. The Death Eater organisation and it's assets seem to act as a central clearing-house and 'neutral ground' meeting point for most of the galaxy's bad-boys, they've even got some kind of ties to the freaking Mysterons or Shadows or whatever the hell they're actually called. We'll need to get a reliable source on him, but I've now idea how we're going to do that – few possibilities but nothing solid."

"What about me, how am I connected?"

"I still don't know, I've got my suspicions, but I still don't know; I haven't been briefed. The boss calls you 'The Golden Path' and I don't know what that means. But I've got my suspicions, sei kara. I've got my suspicions."

"Mind sharing them?"

"I'm sorry, Hermione, I really am, but I'm not allowed to do that. And I won't be until first off I've been briefed on your purpose and second off the boss deems you ready."

"I'd like to meet him."

"Again, not allowed to do that. Last time I saw him the Emperor said, and, I quote, 'Don't you tell a fucking soul where I am'. And, frankly, he tells me to do something, it's getting done. Get my drift?"

"Right," Hermione said, starting to think very hard.

"Don't go looking for him, kiddo. Not safe. Bear in mind that there is a sizeable hostile thing running around this structure right now?"

"You mean... he's at Hogwarts?"

Harry spent a long moment considering her, then chuckled.

"You know how they call this the safest place in known space?"

"Sure I do, what about it? I thought that was propaganda?"

"It sure as hell isn't propaganda, Hermione. This genuinely is the single safest place in the known universe to the point that, if someone starkillered Sol, the only thing insystem that'd be left standing is most of Hogwarts."

"Okay, but... how?"

"Those girls of mine I brought in to defend this pile of rocks, to them this is the most sacred place in known space; Sara's been waiting her entire life to come here. This building, Hermione, is the Emperor's personal bomb shelter."

"Harry, that doesn't add up."

"How so?"

"So, this is the Emperor's personal bomb shelter. And it's got some sort of dangerous thingy running around it. That doesn't make sense."

"It's been two hundred millennia, Hermione, and... you know the statue in the middle of the courtyard?"

"What, that ugly abstractish blob thing?"

"Yeah, that. You know those dark red-black patches in underneath it?"

"The ones that look like really old rust or something?"

"Yeah, those."

"What about them?"

"They're what's left of six sanctified ferrous-metal railgun darts, originally three feet long apiece, fired from a Tau-built man-portable anti-tank gun. There's about four inches of oxidised metal in each of those six stains, I should know, I scanned 'em to check."

"... How'd you know where they came from?"

"Because I fired them, that's where I stapled Lorgar to the blacktop when the warpspawn hit us just under two hundred thousand Earth years ago."

"... oh."

"The boss finished him off, psi-blade to the face... The statue, I've got no idea when it was put in, or what it represents, or when the railgun darts stopped sticking out the plascrete. Hell, I've talked to two of the Founders and they don't know either, it was pretty much like that when they came here the best part of sixty thousand years back but the statue was a bit less worn-away and there was about seven inches of iron oxide embedded in the surface... Hermione, that statue's solid ceramite. It takes a lot to weather that stuff. The plascrete itself, right after I fired 'em those darts were sunk a foot into it. That stuff is tough enough that a railgun dart capable of gutting a Land Raider IFV with one shot only sank a foot into it, and... When I shot Lorgar that surface was perfectly smooth, to the micron. Know the way it grows puddles when it rains? It's been ground down seven to eight inches, presumably by rain falling on it and people walking on it. Look, there's a lot has happened here in the millennia since. This building's been abandoned at least twice since the day we killed Lorgar, aside from the real deep-level areas, it was little more than a shell when the Collegium's Founders reclaimed it. If anyone knows everything that's happened in this place since the first time I came here..." Harry shook his head, "Frankly, Hermione, that sort of 'anyone' scares me."

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – The signpost at Harry's hoard-guardian encampment equates to about 1711 light-years, with thanks to unicornzvi for the correct figures; the string of zeros are there because of the orbital range and velocity of Earth and, presumably, Harry's hoardworld, plus parent stars, means you can't get a figure much more accurate than that when stating distance between planets in different star systems using something as small as kilometres.

Doghead Out.


	10. Chapter 9

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog.**

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_I am the one, camouflage and guns_

_Risk my life to keep my people from harm_

_Authority vested in me_

_I sacrifice with my brothers in arms..._

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The convoy of camouflage-painted Land-Rovers, Bedford TM's and Schammel Commanders that came roaring up the Hogwarts driveway garnered immediate attention – unsurprising for two reasons, firstly since it was arriving about an hour after dinner on a Thursday afternoon about as pleasantly sunny as that part of Scotland ever gets and secondly as it was the second military convoy to arrive at the Collegium within a week.

The soldiers disgorged by the trucks were sincerely more like what their audience was expecting than the last such convoy; large clean-shaven men clad in CS95 fatigues, replete with PLCE harnesses, khaki berets, and slung L85 rifles, exactly as one would expect when seeing British squaddies at work.

Like the horde guardians before them, their setup was quick and well-coordinated; they had their trucks unloaded in short order, the Schammels dropping off a mix of Challenger tanks and Warrior carriers while the footsloggers set up a well-appointed tent encampment, and an hour later when they were approached by the senior members of the Collegium faculty (along with CS Ryanov from the SWDF contingent) everything was in order.

The timing chosen for the other four notables who'd be joining the staff meeting – Harry Johnson as Ryanov's boss, Hermione Granger due to Harry currently refusing to let her out of his sight, S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath as the senior member of Her Radiant Majesty's Special Forces on the scene, and a slightly reluctant Tara due to her being an incognito princess – couldn't have been better; it took place right after a razor-precise formation of flat-black deepspace-camouflaged Mentler DX-58 Hellhound dropships (the cutting-edge latest mark of the same basic design as the Blink Dog) came screaming down out of a cloudless sky to drop off the third component of the Collegium's enhanced security presence; Twelfth Section, Her Radiant Majesty's Fifty-Seventh Legion – the Sunbirds – whose crawler-mounted rapid-deployment field HQ setting up provided a show quite sufficient to distract student attention from the pair of Kenti, one Omega-weapon and one weredragon sloping in the back of the British Army encampment.

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**Disclaimer: Nope. Nope. I deny all knowledge.**

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**Top Dog: Enter the Fnords**

**Book 2: Harry Johnson and the Deathtrap Girl.**

**A Doghead13 / United Galaxies fanfic**

**Written & produced by Calum J 'Doghead13' Wallace.**

**Preread by the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group.**

**Brought to you by Hairy Scottish Git Productions, GMBH**

**This is not a drill.**

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**Chapter 9: A Slight Psi-Related Distraction**

**(In which our hero unexpectedly receives a job)**

Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart VC was probably the most senior military officer in Europe to have a ninety-percent blacked-out record, one of the illustrious few whose publicly-released Victoria Cross citation contained the word 'Classified' and a distinct lack of anything informative, and well up the list of most senior to have been promoted from the ranks. He'd already been famed in military circles when he was instrumental in the establishment of the old United Nations Intelligence Taskforce in 1954, then after the disaster of 1966 he'd played a starring role in the British contribution to UNIT's replacement (titled X-Com courtesy of some weirdo in the parent comittee) and he was one of the few to return from Barsoom alive in November of '81.

The man usually known simply as the Brigadier (with emphasis on the 'The') was a self-made British Army legend in his own lifetime; when Britain needed strangeness dealt with, Her Majesty looked no further.

Frequently, that meant another encounter with the Time Lord usually known as the Doctor (also with emphasis on the 'The',) a longterm friend of the Brigadier and all-round highly useful chap to know, but not today.

Oh no; today it meant an encounter with another Time Lord, one whom the Doctor had a distinctly dim view of, who had some sort of connection with HM Police Special Investigation Department, a group with whom the Brigadier didn't exactly see eye-to-eye. At least Sir Albus Dumbledore, a chap who'd proven himself quite trustworthy and competent during all that unpleasantness at the end of the Seventies (not to mention all that unpleasantness in the early Forties) was in nominal command here and NOT the distinctly dubious character sometimes known as Harry Johnson.

"Afternoon ladies and gentlemen." the Brigadier said as the mixed group of assorted local VIPs and allied officers strode into the command tent.

"Huh; Lethbridge-Stewart." Johnson said, cocking his head. "Should've known Queen Lizzie'd send you."

"Elizabeth," Sir Albus remarked, "Has always had quite a good grasp on whom the right personnel for any given job might be."

"Yeah yeah, I know, anyone who made it out of Cydonia's on that list."

"Johnson you utter cock, would it perhaps be too much to ask that you say something useful for a change?" a lanky lank-haired chap the Brigadier recognised from myriad briefings as Severus Snape grumbled.

"Kiss my ass, dog breath," Johnson snapped, flipping Snape off, "Anyway, catboy, suppose the Sunbirds field commander's gonna be joining us any time soon?"

"That," an exceptionally tall and somehow elegant-looking greying-furred Kenti woman clad in a jet-black uniform and officer's greatcoat (That frankly reminded the Brigadier of a Schutzstaffel officer's uniform in several less than pleasant ways) said, entering the tent, "I am."

"Excellent, we're all here." Sir Albus said, clapping his hands. "Perhaps we should ensure everyone's been introduced?"

"I concur." The Brigadier said with a nod, largely as he wasn't sure who the trio who'd accompanied Johnson were and he didn't know the Kenti officer's name.

"Talon Alpha First Class S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath, Her Radiant Majesty's First Legion; my unit is roughly equivalent to your people's Commando Regiment and as personal bodyguard of the Crown Princess I have a certain level of implicit military seniority beyond my stated rank." the huge Kenti who'd been with Johnson said.

"Harry Johnson. Time Lord, merc, Dark Lord of the Sith. Granger's with me."

"CS Sara Ryanov, Ghost Division, Stormclaw's World Defence Forces. My girls are a special operations unit optimised for FIBUA and close-quarters combat." Hmm, Stormclaw was another of Johnson's known identities; him having a world named for him was information the chaps in Intelligence would probably be quite intrigued by.

"Name's Tara, Tara T'rash'gal, I'm the Blink Dog's nav officer." and the pretty black-furred catwoman gave R'hara'tath a sharp side-on look that probably had a story behind it; the Brigadier made a mental note-to-self to remember to look up intel on starships named Blink Dog at the soonest opportunity.

"I am Doctor Severus Snape, Head of House Slytherin."

"Albus Dumbledore, it seems I'm the chap responsible for the running of that little old collegium over there."

"Section Alpha Reiana T'rael'aisha, Her Radiant Majesty's Third Legion."

"Doctor Minerva McGonagall, Head of House Gryffindor and Albus's deputy."

"Also known as she-without-whom-I-couldn't-get-a-darned-thing-done." Sir Albus chirped up.

"Guildsman Filius Flitwick of House Flitwick, Fist of Wrath Platform, Head of House Ravenclaw."

"Brigadier Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, formerly of X-Com, currently of the Guards. My men are a mix from the Household Infantry and Cavalry; we also have a small number of chaps from Sport and Social with us."

"Doctor Pomona Sprout, Head of House Hufflepuff."

"Well I'm Hermione Granger and I'm not sure what I'm doing here, ask Harry."

"Until this fucking mess is cleared up I'm not letting her out of my sight." Johnson growled, causing the frizzy-haired teenage girl to roll her eyes at him. "Anyway, what's the plan on how to work this?"

"I believe that depends on what we're up against." the Brigadier said.

"That's the kicker; we don't know."

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Ron Weasley was vaguely mooching back towards the dorms, having spent a pleasant few hours generally hanging out at the edge of the loch along with a small swarm of fellow students (largely from House Hufflepuff) when he became aware of a somewhat more laid-back than recently Harry, with Hermione close by, coming rampaging up from the car park towards the castle.

"Whattup, thought you were up at the dorms?" he asked.

"Nah, had to have a chat with a squaddie or two," Harry told him, shrugging one shoulder while rooting around in his jacket for a cigarette with his other hand, "No big deal."

Hermione, Ron noted, rolled her eyes at that.

"What? Oh come on Granger, patrol routes and scheduling _aren't_ a big deal... heh, most of the time I'm looking at them from the _other_ side."

"... I don't even want to _know_ what that's all about." Ron said.

"Which is good since the details are need-to-know and you don't."

"Everyone in the Collegium's going to know them sooner or later, so why the big secret?" came a sneering and in no way welcome voice; turning round, the trio of Gryffindors found Draco Malfoy (Unusually enough, on his own) glaring back at them.

"Perhaps because it may mean the difference between 'sooner' and 'later'?" Harry asked, cocking his head.

"Why does it matter if everyone's going to know anyway?"

"Typical attitude for an amateur fuckwad," Harry noted, "There is no such thing as perfect security. Every response pattern has a weak spot – it's simply a matter of finding it. 'Night and Mist', Malfoy. Everything has levels – and the less Joe Sheep knows about everything below the surface the better. Like to know why? Because what Joe Sheep knows, Joe _Enemy_ knows too. Maintaining a high level of uncertainty over whether Joe Sheep knows everything about a security response is good for everyone involved – apart from the enemy. That's how your old man's boss got so far at the end of the Seventies – superior intel. He knew what the good guys were doing before they did it. Sometimes before they knew what they were doing. Ergo, he outmanouvered them at every turn."

"My father was never involved in the last insurgency!" Draco snapped, "We have proof of it!"

"And if anyone in known space believes your old man's 'proof' I've got Zeurghnorf land rights going cheap; I know precisely what your family have been doing for centuries, Malfoy, and I know precisely who bankrolled Old Mouldy, and how, and who cut the deal. There is no such thing as perfect security and no such thing as perfect secrecy – I know as well as you do, your old man facilitated a deal with the Nalfers to bankroll Mouldyshorts and I have proof that'd hold up in any court in the galaxy that wasn't bought."

"You're not going to enjoy yourself when my father runs this place, Pot-!" Draco abruptly cut off, clapping his hands over his mouth and going completely white.

"Illuminating slip, Malfoy." Harry said, voice dead level.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you? Potter." There was a certain note of resignation in the now ghostly-pale blond's voice.

"Oh, I think we can make a deal of some sort. Maybe even see eye-to-eye, if only on one little thing." Harry mused, idly starting to circle the terrified Slytherin.

"You know and I know, Draco, I could _destroy you where you stand_. It wouldn't take much more effort to eliminate your old man. Your family does not have much of it's past influence or fortune left, with a little help from Voldemort your father squandered much of both... you're shadows of what you once were, and I think we're both quite aware of _exactly_ where in the pecking order you stand. However, at the present time taking you and Lucius out of the picture on a permanent basis would be... politically inconvenient."

"What do you want?"

"Dangerous question, Draco. Very dangerous... at this moment in time, you dead, no strings attached, would be worth exactly sixteen thousand international exchange credits. That's precisely nine thousand and twenty-two Galleons six Sickles and three Knuts at today's exchange rate. Approximate cost of making you dead, no strings attached, around sixty-eight thousand international exchange credits. Every time you piss me off, Draco, the value of seeing you dead creeps up just a little bit... I've got the deal of a lifetime for you, Draco, and this offer is only open as I initiated hostilities between us in the first place. I'm as far above you as you are above that unpleasant crap you find under your foreskin when you've been jerking off the night before. Don't fuck with my people, stay the hell out my way, and try not to piss me off; you do that and I won't crush you. Like a bug. Do we understand one another?"

"Yes; quite clearly."

"Do we have an agreement, Draco?"

"You realise I cannot speak for Father?"

"Far be it for me to punish the son for the sins of the father; if I did that, given not-so-distant galactic history, there wouldn't be a hell of a lot of people left, _would there_?"

"Then we have an agreement."

"Good. Now get the Hell out my face."

To his credit, Draco didn't run across the courtyard. He walked.

Harry spent a long moment watching him go, then slowly shook his head.

"Brave kid." he said.

"He was just about shitting himself!"

"Said it plenty times before, Ron. Courage isn't lack of fear. Courage is being scared shitless and still getting the job done, and there goes a kid who just did exactly that." Harry resumed his interrupted swagger back towards Gryffindor ground.

"Whaddya mean getting the job done?" Ron dubiously asked, following him through the postern gate.

"He's still breathing, isn't he?"

"... Harry, sometimes you scare the shite out of me, you know that?"

"Just shows you've got more brains than you let on; I seem to end up scaring myself on a not-so-infrequent basis."

"You really would do for the Malfoys if they pushed you too far, wouldn't you?"

"Of course... Trouble is, Lucius Malfoy's in tight with the Fudge administration, and continued open access to Britain is currently mission-critical so I can't burn too many bridges here. Eliminating the Malfoys? Simple. Three rounds in the calibre of your choice, another three to make sure, or alternatively some high explosives, and either way some leg-work; cost about twenty quid and another charge for my rap sheet. Doing so in a way that doesn't get my face splashed all over wanted posters in Daigon Alley? Not so simple. Probable pricetag a couple million Galleons or the use of some very expensive deniable assets I'm keeping in reserve for something else. Lucius Malfoy's head is only worth just under five thousand Marks, works out at about thirty-five thousand Galleons, at present, so the math doesn't stack up; he's paranoid as hell, not surprised considering that price on his head's from Clan Asinara, he fucked off their current Clanlord."

"Thirty-five grand, Galleons? I'd have thought an Am clan would've put a bigger price on someone who really pissed off their Clanlord."

"Didn't you know? The Asinaras were days away from bankruptcy when I splashed Kami Asinara's brains all over his porch, and with the amount they owe it'd probably take 'em centuries to get back into the black – sure, they're turning a profit, but they are literally hanging from loans, I'm talking to the point Soun Tendo promised one of his daughters to the Saotome Heir for enough money to keep the Clan semi-solvent until they can pay off their debts, and considering exactly who paid me to blow Soun's old man's fucking head clean off, that's a little bit extreme a move. Consider that Lucy-boy's implicated in the plot that ended up with some amateur trying to put a bolt pistol shell into the Asinara Heir's head, incidentally converting said heir's mother – their current Clanlord's favourite and incidentally only concubine – into a grease stain. Should give you a picture on how strapped for cash the Asinaras are, they could only afford to throw down five grand Juraian on each implicated conspirator... in case you're wondering I already collected on seven of the other eleven, they didn't have the protection old mono-bollock's got."

"Protection?" Ron asked.

"You mean apart from Fudgepacker? Feh. Listen, the Malfoys have acted for generations as a central clearing-house and neutral-ground meeting point for most of the galaxy's bad-boys, Lucy-boy may not look like much but half the nastiest bastards in known space would find it inconvenient if that particular family went tits up. They're professional money-launderers and deal-brokers, and on top of that they provide someplace the scum of the galaxy can come to feel genteel and superior... Ron, Lucius may not look like much, but he's on first-name terms with such luminaries as Gothwrain Drakul, Heymar Reinhardt, Orochimaru, Cobra, the L'Angell family, Madara Uchiha, fucking _Johann Schmidt_... hell, he was on first-name terms with Eidun Palpatine. That should tell you something."

"Those sort wouldn't like it if someone wasted Lucius, right?"

"Precisely. And when someone at that level doesn't like something, shit has a tendency to happen in a very direct manner. Planet-busting warheads are frequently involved."

"Harry, I seem to remember you saying something about Lucius having a billion-Mark bounty on him sometime last year." Hermione remarked.

"Yeah, he did. Pity the guy who'd placed it came over all dead last Easter, isn't it?"

"What happened?" Hermione asked.

"Sniped while getting out his motor in Bruges, single round to the brainpan, seven-six-two Russian with crystal-clear SVD rifling marks, by-the-book sniper kill. From the, let's say _distinctive_, chakra traces at the firing location – ballistics got that much – the shooter was one of Orochimaru's."

"What the hell's 'chakra'?" Ron dubiously asked.

"Similar to thaumatic energy but a slightly different blend, it can be categorised into assorted, for want of a better word, 'flavours' and ol' Roachy's favourite is pretty unusual. Bastard uses it as a calling-card. Where you've got chakra traces you've got ninjas, and ninjas are never good news. Feh, I hate fucking ninjas. They're annoyingly like cockroaches – no matter how many you splatter there'll be another ten along in a minute, and Orochimaru's the worst of the lot. I've killed him, ripped his fucking head off and checked there weren't any vital signs left in him, three times so far and I know for a fact he's been killed another twelve times; the bastard just won't stay dead."

"Body doubles?" Hermione suggested.

"Definitely not the times I got him, that's the first thing I checked. It's a real sod pinning the bastard down – he's like smoke – but each time I've killed him I've made absolutely certain I was taking out the real Orochimaru. Checked before and after, got the stiff verified and everything, hell I've even taken soulkillers to him once, and he just keeps coming back. Can't be copycats either – the second time I killed him, that was the time I hit him with an entire belt of soulkiller-enchanted seven-six-two, the bastard later acted on info he acquired in the process of me killing him."

"Well how can you be sure nobody else knew?"

"Because I policed up the evidence with a planet-buster. What? Oh quit looking at me like that, it's not like it was an inhabited planet, just some dead rock in the cometary halo nobody was gonna miss anyway – I made sure of that much. And it's not like Palpatine having access to double-stage cyclonic torpedoes would have been a good idea, I mean that vastly overgrown zap-gun of his was bad enough anyway and it hardly had the manoeuvrability of a torpedo cruiser... feh, Roachy's even worse news."

Harry sighed and shook his head.

"I'm half-convinced the bastard's using some sort of soul jar, but there was no trace of any of the secondary effects of any of the known techniques – he's definitely not a lich just for a start. Worst-case scenario is he's managed to make his soul indestructible and that's the sort of bad news the galaxy could really do without. It's possible he's using some sort of biomantic decots or some other kind of meat puppetry, but there weren't any traces on the bodies that'd tie into any of the known ways of doing that, and they definitely weren't any sort of production-line decots – definitely had fully-functional brains for a start. Could be Heaven doesn't want the bastard and Hell's scared he'll take over... Long story short I don't know how he survived a soulkiller-enchanted M134A hosement to the face and I wish I didn't need to, but someone's gonna have to get to the bottom of it; the galaxy needs that son-of-a-bitch dead on a permanent basis."

"Are you sure he actually has a soul in the first place?" Ron asked.

"Sorry to burst your bubble there Weasley, but anything aware even if only at the most basic level has a soul – they're a product of awareness itself. Hell, a closed-circuit TV camera has a minute but detectable soul. I'm not entirely sure what makes 'em essential to the continued function of a biological creature, but then that's moving way into celestial physics and that's a little outside my area of expertise. Far as I see it, about all that matters in real-world terms is a non-biological soul-bearing entity – such as a Baneblade tank – can't be taken out with a soulkiller but a heavy railgun will do the job just fine. Want to know more? You could ask Urd if you're willing to read up on the background necessary to understand what the hell's going on, but bear in mind it's the same sort of complexity as warp-drive physics."

"In other words if you understand it either you're a super-genius or your brain's been turned into mush?"

"Pretty much," Harry agreed, nodding to the guards – a new fixture – as they sloped into the Gryffindor hangout, "I file it under Not My Problem, I know these things exist and what they can do for me, and that's all I'm concerned about. I'm no researcher, I'll never be a researcher, I mean I tried and nearly went stir-crazy from boredom. Not my scene and my standard commentary about specialists applies."

"I hear ya man," Ron said, nodding gloomily and sprawling across an available sofa, "Me, I ain't got the brain-power for research, not that I'd want to, right? I mean, being a mad scientist sounds pretty cool but it's not what I want to do with my life."

"So what do you want to do with your life?" Hermione asked, moving to sit down only to be pulled onto Harry's lap.

"No idea but it's not sitting round a lab being bored. Some ways I'd like to play pro gravball but I don't think I'm ever gonna be good enough, I've thought about doing a stint in the Barsoomian Foreign Legion or some-such but I don't much like the idea of being shot at for a living... I dunno, guess I'll worry about that sort of stuff roundabout seventh year or something. I mean, if I stick it at Technomancy – Professor von Zeppelin says I'm pretty good – then by the time I'm outta the Collegium I'll know enough to build myself a spelljammer, I could asteroid mine or haul short freight or something for a few years then retire and spend the rest of my life being a professional layabout."

"You do realise that what von Zep calls 'pretty good' means the sort of technomancer who's liable to have shipbuilders galaxy-wide queuing up to offer him high-paying jobs?" Harry pointed out; he had his chin rested on Hermione's shoulder.

"Well, something like that, yeah, but I mean, construction-line shipbuilding work? Stuff that, it'd be even more boring than some miserable lab and if I was high-placed enough to haul in the sort of money I could earn with a home-made spelljammer then I'd be the sort of person who gets assassinated and, frankly, fuck that. Nah, a few years shipping cargo from, oh, Barsoom to Dachaigh Nuadh or some-such, you know, in secure space, then decades of doing whatever I feel like, probably mostly twatting around with jetcycles or sitting on my arse in front of the triD, sounds way much more up my alley."

"You are one phenomenally unambitious person, you know that Ron?" Neville said, sitting down across the table from the three of them.

"Well yeah, I mean it's no mistake I'm not in Slytherin, it's really not where I'd fit in. Not that the Hat gave me a choice, mind, I'm nobody's Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff sounds like way too much effort, and Slytherin? Get off, all that ambition and cunning and crap, yeah, sounds too much like hard work to me, so when you take those three out the picture that doesn't leave a whole lot of choice now, does it?"

"The Hat wanted me in Hufflepuff," Neville admitted, "But I wasn't going to disappoint Gran, so... What? It's as good a reason as any."

"You're going to have to get out of under that woman's thumb sooner or later, kid." Harry said.

"No offence Harr, but you don't know what you're talking about," Neville told him, shaking his head, "Family's important and Gran's the only family I've got left – well, apart from Uncle Algy about whom the less said the better, he's... not all there. Let's just say the lift doesn't just not go all the way to the top, it doesn't go up, period; not surprised really, he got the third go when it happened to my parents."

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened?" Hermione asked.

"The LeStranges and Crouch Junior happened. They, uh, held the Cruciatus down on Mum and Dad till they were foaming at the mouth, and had started in on Uncle Algy when Gran and her partner kicked the door in, that was like two weeks after You-Know-Who was on the receiving end of the Potters. According to Gran, the LeStranges and Crouch were trying to torture You-Know-Who's whereabouts out of Mum and Dad and Uncle Algy, and the only reason I didn't go first was I was at playschool that morning."

"I've seen the reports," Harry remarked, "It was that hit that tripped off the heavy raids and busts on Old Mouldy's bumchums. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and when it comes to Old Blood-And-Bones' officers being put in St Mungos on a permanent basis the resulting reaction is _quite a fucking thing_. Especially seeing as how Augusta Longbottom and Alastor Moody were the first on the scene – the SAT teams still regards Augusta as their real Chief, have done since '44, and nine-tenths of the supernatural law enforcement officers in Europe have been trained to salute Mad-Eye."

"What the hell's a 'sat team'?" Ron asked.

"Special Arrest Team. Name's not descriptive – it's highly unusual for a SAT team to actually _arrest_ anyone, they're who you call when hostages have been executed and it's time for every tango in the area to die. I'm surprised you didn't know about them; your dad was point man for SAT Beta until the Morrigna incident... They're who would've blasted Mouldy Voldey if the DMLE had ever managed to pin his location down – that's the sort of thing they were formed for."

"Okay, but... when?" Hermione asked.

"Final stages of Grindlewald's War, see they're who closed down the Ahnenerbe. Okay, so the old fart took out Himmler himself, someone had to deal with the hangers-on and toadies and yes-men and minions. That someone was Augusta Longbottom and her wrecking crew." Harry said.

"It wasn't like Gran didn't have help, expert help and I'm meaning from people who'd been figuratively mooning the Reich for years. The Backlash Gang." Neville chipped in.

"The Backlash Gang? I thought they were a myth?" Eiko Kent had just joined the conversation.

Harry let out a low laugh. "A myth, Kent? The Backlash Gang are just as much a myth as the Miracle at Mons, the Slayer line, the Golem of Prague, Captain America, ODESSA, Nick Fury, Die Glocke, the Battle of Neuschwabenland, Themiscyrae, _Johan fucking Schmidt_... you get the picture. Myth? Someone in a position of power wants you to think those people and events are mythological, that's all. The Backlash Gang, a myth? Kent, I'm sitting right here." There was a quiet and very subtle note of pride in Harry's voice, which out of his audience only Hermione knew him well enough to pick up on.

"What the hell have you got to do with the Backlash Gang?" Neville asked.

However, his question was destined to remain unanswered for the present as Harry abruptly shot to his feet, his hands dropping to his Calicos, and barked, "Koset! What the fuck are _you_ doing in Clanspace?"

The source of his ire was immediately apparent; a lanky and rather unmemorable man with dirty-blond hair and an equally forgettable grey business suit, carrying a briefcase.

"Evening Slade. Oddly enough I've got a job offer for you," the man, presumably named Koset, said, dumping a cybernetic interface data chip on the table, "This is straight from the top."

Harry dubiously contemplated the chip for a moment; Uni came dashing in, scooped it up, and jacked it into one of her neck-mounted cybernetic interface ports, much to Koset's apparent displeasure.

"It's clean," the catgirl reported, handing the chip to Harry, who jacked it into himself.

He was silent for a few moments, then snorted.

"I'll take the job. Oh, and tell your boss next time he's looking to hire me send someone else."

"You think I'm happy about this, you son-of-a-bitch?" Koset snapped, depositing the briefcase on the table.

"Do I look like I give a damn what you want?" Harry asked, flipping the briefcase open (revealing it to be full of foreign banknotes) and running a quick count, "Koset, the only reason you're still _breathing_ is you're worth less than the bullet it'd take to blow your fucking head clean off. Right, that's all in order – I'm on this one. Uni, Granger, with me – we've got places to be."

"Me?" Hermione asked, slightly taken aback; the previous time she'd gone someplace on the job with him she'd had to talk him into it.

"Yes, you. Briefing's in ten minutes in my digs, c'mon."

Ron Weasley, having watched Harry depart (trailed by catgirl and girl genius) turned his attention to Koset.

"Who in the fuck are you?"

"Someone who doesn't exist." the man said, and turned to leave.

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"Who was that Koset guy and what'd he mean straight from the top?" was the first question out of Hermione's mouth once she, Harry, the Puma twins, and a woman she recognised as the Shen-Long's ostensible captain were gathered in Harry's dorm, the latter having arrived via subspace door.

"Koset's a Juraian secret service operative. Highly-placed – he's only got one boss. Let's just say he and I have crossed swords from time to time – the Juraians are just another self-assigned master-race and frankly I do not get on with master-races. Not like they're as malevolent as most but they ain't exactly on my Christmas card list and I have taken great glee in screwing them around a time or two. Anyway, what do you know about the no-fly zone between the Juraian Empire and New Atlantis?"

"Nothing, actually; I hadn't heard of it."

"Right. As part of the peace treaty that ended the last Jurai-New Atlantis war, so as of a little over two hundred Standard ago, there's an exclusion corridor a hundred lights across between Treefucker space and Nalfer space. The Nalfers are camped one side of the exclusion zone, the Treefuckers the other. They detect anything moving faster than light in the exclusion zone, it tries to get out it's shot to dust – and the sensor tech involved is bleeding-edge, the Treefuckers have the best long-range detection arrays in known space and the Nalfers ain't far behind. There are perhaps two dozen starships in known space able to break the light barrier without the Juraian Navy being able to pinpoint them, one of which is the Shen-Long – for the Nalfers, call it about two hundred ships they can't detect. So, when the Emperor of Jurai has an objective in the middle of his own exclusion zone, who's he gonna call? I'm the only mercenary the Treefuckers are aware of who can dodge their detection systems – kinda limits their options."

"What's our objective, Master?" the Shen-Long's captain asked.

"There's a high-intensity psi-source somewhere in the exclusion zone, it was first picked up about a century ago during the aftermath of the war and has been fluctuating ever since. Twenty-eight hours ago it spiked – so much so it was detected on Rokolushu, and yes I mean as in the Juraiain capital world – fifteen thousand lights from the exclusion zone. Whatever's putting that out, the signal's got every precognitive in Juraian space going apeshit, portents of doom up the ying-yang – whatever the hell's going on in there Emperor Azusa wants it closed down and fast, no questions asked."

"Where do I come into this?" Hermione asked.

"Broadcasting a psi-signal detectable from fifteen kilolights takes about as much power as a medium-size star; when messing with that sort of thing wise men want a little overwhelming firepower up their alley. And as we have no damn clue what we're getting into you're going to be wearing body armour."

Hermione nodded; Harry nodded back and continued, "Anna, Uni – you two are sticking to Granger like glue, understood? As soon as we're on the ground you're within ten feet of her at all times or else. Maria, I want the Shen-Long on the Juraiain border immediately – we'll meet you there in one hour. Speak to Kitten, authorisation code sigma ascendant two nine nine. Get moving."

"Understood, Master," and the Shen-Long's captain beat it out the door into the rest of the Gryffindor dorms.

"Hmph," and Harry dug into his gun cabinet. He came out with a Howa Earthshaker revolver, in holster and attached to gunbelt with several pouches containing speed-loaders; this he handed to Hermione, "This weapon is loaded. It does not have a safety catch. Carla!"

"Sup, Master?" Carla asked, emerging from down the side of Harry's bed.

"Let Ben and Catboy know what's happening. Once you've done that prep Venus Division and Iron Maiden Division in case we need some backup, I want them onboard the Shen-Long ASAP."

"I'm on it," and Carla too high-tailed it out the room.

"Righty, now we need armour for a Hermione," Harry said, rising to his feet and taking her hand as he headed for the subspace door, "C'mon through here, I got an armoured body glove set up for ya a while back, just never got around to giving it to you – it'll stop a bolter shell dead in it's tracks and give you a fighting chance against an infantry anti-tank laser. Expensive as all get-out but whatever, quality's worth the cost."

"Define expensive," Hermione said.

"Just over four and a half times what your collar cost," and he nearly pulled her off her feet as she stopped dead in her tracks, stunned, "C'mon sei kara, we ain't got all week."

"... as much as an entire fucking AIR LINE, ye gods Harry just how the hell does a set of armour cost that much?" she boggled, resuming following him.

"By being an inch thick, lightweight, temperature-controlled bodysuit with a one hundred percent effectiveness rate against a .75-calibre armour-piercing bolter shell. It'll give you a fighting chance, about fifty percent, against a laser able to gut a Leman Russ with a single shot. That's _why_ it cost as much as a Warlord Titan – that and the fact that sort of armour isn't mass-produced. The market for concealed-wear body armour proof against many anti-tank weapons isn't exactly extensive – the materials required to stop a lascannon blast in an inch thickness are nine-tenths the expense... The company that made it have made one other such suit. Queen Rialia owns it, she wears it whenever she's out in public – their main shareholder's an admirer of hers, he had it made for her after the time she took a Frognorfian Mafia sniper's bullet in the guts – closest a Kenti monarch's came to getting assassinated since, ye gods, Rialia the Second got left in a coma by a near-miss with a blasting hex during the Kendarat-Hardak War."

As Harry ranted, they'd taken several turns through the subspace door network, into a complex of twisty passages, and were now face-to-face with a cage-door-like checkpoint manned by two heavily-armed women in uniforms familiar from Harry's hoard guardians, who had been playing a card game and were now pointing large guns at him and Hermione.

"Authorisation code?" the woman on the left said.

"Zeta recumbent two nine nine alpha." Harry immediately replied

"Identification four one one please, Master." the woman requested, not lowering her gun.

"Seven one two one, crux ascendant." Harry said, and both women immediately lowered their weapons; something chimed and the gate slid open; leading Hermione in, Harry gave the two gunwomen a nod and thumbs-up but said nothing; the two gunwomen returned to their card game without comment.

There was another corner right after the 'checkpoint' and round there was a sight that stopped Hermione dead in her tracks – a steel-grey AV-20 Terminator walkertank suit, standing just back from the corner.

She'd seen photographs of Terminator suits before, and had thought they looked pretty impressive, but seeing one in person was a whole different kettle of fish – the thing was massive to the point it would have towered head and shoulder-pads over even S'tarak'hai – it was about twelve straight feet tall.

As for the gun – commonly referred to as an 'assault cannon' – it would have looked more in place slung under the nose of a helicopter gunship; a six-barrelled rotary 'vulcan cannon', it was about six feet long from stock to muzzles and looked like it must weigh more than Hermione did even without it's feed system and the giant hopper of ammunition mounted on the walkertank suit's back.

"Penny for?" Harry asked, smirking at her.

"Oh, nothing much – I'm just realising where the term 'walkertank' comes from,' she said; the thing was very like a two-legged tank with arms instead of turret.

A dry and to Hermione's considerable surprise female-sounding chuckle issued from the armoured monstrosity; Harry echoed it and with a gentle tug on her hand directed Hermione to follow him down the hallway over which the Terminator suit was standing sentry duty.

"I thought you had to be Adeptus Astartes to drive one of those things?" she said.

"Nah, you just need to be big enough and have the right cybernetic interface gear," he told her, "And with cloning tech that's easy to organise."

With that, Harry slapped his hand against the touchpad beside the blast door at the end of the hallway; something ka-chirped, there was a hiss and click, and the two halves of the door laboured into ceiling and floor.

Within was guns.

Lots of guns.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Harry, what is this place?" Hermione asked, eyeing up the wall of assorted AK-47's to her left; to her right was corresponding ammunition. It was the third such gun rack they'd walked past, the first containing shotguns and the second shoulder-launched rockets, since they entered the cavernous chamber; at each intersection was parked an assortment of armoured vehicles most of which she didn't recognise. Only the Second World War German Tiger tank had proved familiar.

"My main armoury," Harry told her, "This is where I keep most of my collection of weaponry and equipment. Hey – and I've got some rarities here, see that?" and he pointed at an AK-47 that looked just the same as all the others, "Not just any AK-47, that's the very first AK-47 the Russkis produced back in 1947. The pistol in that display cabinet beside the Tiger, that's the gun Hitler killed himself with. Other side of the Tiger, that rifle's the BAR a guy called Jimmy Watson, Private in the Septic's Marines, was holding when he earned himself their Medal of Honour on Iwo Jima. It's the only gun used when winning one of those I've been able to track down. That laspistol right at the near end of the rack of laspistols, that's Ciaphas Cain's laspistol, I've even got two boltguns that were used by the Emperor Himself."

"Ciaphas Cain? The name doesn't ring a bell."

"Hmm? Oh, course not. Remind me to loan you a copy of the Cain Archive some time. Guy was a Commisar in the Old Atlantean Imperial Guard at the Imperium's lowest ebb – and frankly, all Cain's self-depreciation aside, him and his aide, Gunner Ferik Jurgen – been trying to track down his meltagun, no joy so far - were two of the Imperium's top heroes, they have a pretty good claim on being the finest men alive at that time. The archive works on two levels, as an interesting study in the nature of heroism and as a series of cracking good historic adventure stories... But anyway what we're after just now is over here, this is where I keep armour and such like," and they took a left past the Tiger tank into an aisle lined with armour of every conceivable shape and size – from an Ultramarines-blue Terminator walkertank (with 'BROTHER-SERGEANT POTTER' emblazoned in Old Atlantean on the glacis plate) to several dozen different powered armour suits to a whole galaxy of flak vests, plate carriers, splinter vests, stab vests, padded armour, the works – including myriad things that didn't look like armour.

And amongst it all was a perfectly ordinary 40-foot cargo container, into one side of which had been inserted a door; it was into this that Harry led Hermione.

Within was rack upon rack of clothes of a somewhat different character to those without. The stuff outside was the sort of stuff Harry would wear; that within was, Hermione realised with a start, the sort of stuff Harry would like seeing her wear.

He went directly to the end of the nearest rack, lifted down a jet-black padded jumpsuit, and handed it to her.

"Here y'go. One armoured body glove. This is the finest non-rigid armour in the galaxy, kiddo." he said.

"This can stop a lascannon blast?" Hermione rather dubiously asked.

"Roughly a fifty-fifty chance, and if you're wondering that's substantially better than the hull of a Leman Russ."

"What about my head?"

"Protected by two of the optional extras on this thing. First off there's a dual-layer deflection shield generator inbuilt – identical to a starship's navigational deflectors, uses modified sled parts in fact – and second off you pull those two cords in the back of the collar, it'll draw a fully-enclosing hood over your head. Has inbuilt forced air circulation and nano-optics for field-of-view transparency, of course... Hermione, don't under any circumstances think this thing makes you invincible, understand? A lascannon has a fifty percent chance of penetrating and if it penetrates you are _gone_. Likewise while the suit may perform superbly against hypervelocity slug-throwing weapons, the impact of a railgun slug on that suit would be like getting hit by a freight train. There's a very good chance even if the blast didn't blow your head off it'd make your internal organs collide violently enough to drop you on the spot, understand?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

"... Harry, how about next time you buy me something insanely expensive you make it something I actually like the look of?"

"I'll do my best. Anyway everything else in here's sized to fit over the top of it if you want, have fun." and Harry left the container.

Hermione spent several long moments staring after him, taken aback – she'd intended that as a joke and it appeared he'd taken it hundred-percent seriously – then shrugged that off as yet another example of Harry's basic Harry-ness, stripped off, and started putting the armoured jumpsuit on, examining it as she went.

Made to cover every part of her below her collar, it was about an inch thick all over and sculpted to precisely follow the contours of her body; it sealed up the back with a hiss and click, constricted itself until skin-tight, and stretched in all the right places to avoid restricting her movements. The whole thing was that sort of black so glossy you can see your face in it; it had something Old Atlantean that only a year ago she wouldn't have known translated to 'Ryza Heavy Industries' in white runic text across the back of the shoulders, a slightly modified Adeptus Mechanicus cog-and-skull symbol on the left shoulder, repetitions of the same markings as her collar on the right shoulder, and, embossed and sculpted into the front, seeming to reach up and round from the right to grip the suit's left breast, a stylised scaled arm with thunderbolt patterns for claws.

Eyeing herself up, Hermione immediately noticed that the suit over-rode her lifelong scrawniness and excess of limb – it bulked her out to the point she actually looked in proportion with herself.

Though enamoured with the look she was not; she turned her attention to the racks of clothing.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Ta-da!" and Harry's attention lifted from where he'd been leant against the side of the container reading a dossier.

He'd realised the moment she laid eyes on the thing that as he'd expected Hermione wasn't exactly pleased with the appearance of the armoured body glove – completely unsurprising, even with the way she'd loosened up over the last year a shiny black catsuit really wasn't 'her'. Thus the assortment of clothing he'd provided sized to go over the top of the thing, and if said clothing included a little more armour, well, that was just pragmatism, wasn't it?

Over the top of the armoured body glove she was now wearing Barsoom Defence Forces red-sand camouflage BDU trousers held in place at the knees and ankles with black leather straps, a plain high-necked crop-top in a colour matching the trousers, a reproduction of an antiquated Kenti wet-navy officer's greatcoat, an underbreast corset, and low heeled boots; as usual she had her gunbelt on, let out several notches to fit over the armour's thickness.

Lighting her up with LIDAR and some quick mental arithmetic underlined that she still had her self-image problems; that wasn't a corset sized to go over the top of the armour, it was her usual one, and she'd got the damn thing tighter than usual – she was overcompensating for the inch of blaster-proof ballistic matting around her waist.

"Go round the Collegium looking like that and I reckon the number of guys walking into walls will rise, kid," he said, mentally totting up the costings of some nanotreatments that'd give her the waist-hip ratio and general body shape she appeared to be looking for – _hmm, two grand Imperial, very do-able, _he mused as he casually hooked a leash onto her collar in an attempt to needle her that backfired spectacularly, "You ready to get mobile?"

"I think so," she said, stretching elaborately while keeping an eye on his reaction, and a momentary deeply satisfied look flashed across her face as Harry Johnson smiled.

"In that case, let's get out there and make us some cash."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Can anyone here," said Eiko Kent, "Think of anyone who'd know much of anything about the Backlash Gang? I mean, we've got Harry's statement that they're real and they're something to do with him – at least, I think that's what his commentary meant,"

Her room-mate (a tlhIngan by the name of Doran, Eiko had originally been going to room with Asari Chaos but she and the Drow girl had rapidly and severely creeped each other out while Ginny Weasley's 'difference of opinion' with Doran had spilled out into the hall and threatened to knock walls down) emitted a most unladylike (but decidedly Klingonlike) snort, "I doubt you'll learn anything like this... who are these Backlash people anyway?"

"Jesus, don't you know anything?" Ginny (who had most decidedly not buried any hatchets) complained, glaring at Doran, who, being a Klingon, did a more than adequate job of glaring back.

"Give it a rest Ginny, that era of Earther history isn't very widely known offworld," Neville said, "You do know the last Clanspace-New Atlantis War and Grindlewald's War were going on at the same time, right?"

"I know, I know, I just think the least people could do before coming to Earth or, well, any planet is learn at least something about where they're going,"

"I did you stupid little trollop, I went to the effort of learning your damn language and-"

"Oh shut the fuck up, both of you, or I'll bang your heads together." Eiko demanded; both Ginny and Doran, being perfectly aware that the Kryptonian-Themiscyraean hybrid was very capable of carrying it through regardless of what they had to say on the subject, shut up. "Is anyone else going to start sniping at each other? No? Thankyou... Doran, in answer to your question, sixty years ago a group of unmitigated bad guys and that's with an upper case B and G who called themselves Nazis tried to take over the world,"

"And very nearly succeeded," Neville muttered.

"Part of what they did was trying to wipe out certain ethnic groups of people. Herding them into camps and murdering them on an industrial scale. Nobody's really sure why, apart from just bigotry gone utterly out of control." Eiko continued.

"There's theories that it was some sort of enormous mass-sacrifice ritual, but nothing anyone's ever been able to prove," Neville added, "For my part I think the theories are people trying to rationalise something completely irrational."

Doran nodded. "There are few species without a past shame of that manner," she said.

"Of course, there were some people who knew what was going on and decided to do something, anything, about it. According to all the stories Dad heard from his Dad, well, adoptive dad, John Kent, one of them," Eiko continued, "Was a man who called himself Danny Backlash and he was a _complete_ _maniac_."

"That's-" Neville started, sounding momentarily angry, only to cut off and mutter, "... probably actually a pretty good description when it comes down to it," and he shrugged it off, going back to a normal volume, "Most of the people rescuing people from the Nazis did things as quietly and sneakily as they could. They had to. There wasn't any option – it was that or they and their families and their friends and basically everyone they knew would be next in the death camps. According to my gran, who worked with him for a few months, Danny Backlash did everything as loudly, violently, flashily and messily as he could. She asked him why once and he told her it was because the more Nazis there were chasing after him in Germany itself the less Nazis there were on the front lines shooting at the Allies who were coming to get the lot of the bastards. And, yeah, Eiko's right. He was a complete and utter maniac, Gran calls him 'the finest and maddest sapient being' she's ever known."

"What do you think's going on with Harry and the Backlash Gang, Neville?" Eiko asked.

"Well, it sounded very like he'd got something to do with them, almost like he was one of them – but that doesn't make sense. I mean, the Backlash Gang were heroes, they did everything for nothing more than the chance to do the right thing. And you know what Harry says – 'In the Emperor we trust, all others pay cash.' He's a through-and-through mercenary... Maybe he was supplying them munitions or something, they definitely used quite a lot of offworld firepower – but I'm really not sure."

"If anyone in the collegium who isn't Harry knows, well, I can tell you who it'll be; my brother." Asari said.

"You reckon?" Eiko asked her.

"Yeah; he knows Harry better than anyone else I can think of."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The noise hit Hermione the moment she stepped across the threshold of the subspace door, and it hit her so hard it was almost like a physical blow – a wall of this ungodly howling mayhem like something halfway between a jet engine, a set out out-of-tune bagpipes, and a cat being horribly tortured.

"Yow!" She complained, jerking back, "What the hell is that noise?"

"That," Harry said with a grimace, "Is the psi-signal we're out to close down."

"Ye gods, it sounds like a jetliner inhaling about a million wet cats,"

"Sounds more like a greater daemon of Slaanesh violating itself with a Titan chainfist to me." Harry muttered with a grimace.

"... I take it you're speaking from experience?" Hermione dubiously asked.

"Unfortunately."

"Oh I really did _not_ need to know that."

"Just lucky that the next thing that happens if a Keeper of Secrets violates itself with a Titan chainfist is a discorporated Keeper of Secrets. Anyway, it sounded like that."

"... Of all the times I've been glad I'm not a psionic sensitive," Uni mused, "This is _it_."

"Maria!" Harry barked as they entered the Shen-Long's bridge, "Why the Hell haven't you got... Okay. What in the Emperor's name is going on here?"

The forwards section of the bridge – that region not reserved for Harry's throne – was a sight. Several consoles had been, for want of a better word, disemboweled, their components sprinkled wily-nily across the floor amidst a rat's nest of cables and gadgetry; several technicians were digging into the mess, and over all was running a near chorus of multi-lingual swearing.

"One of the verdamnt generators surged and blew, the power surge in the Bridge Two ring circuit fried everything up to and including psi-countermeasure control and half the crew can't focus past that Emperor-forsaken wailing Master, every psyker on board's been knocked senseless, Captain's out cold, now if you can't help get this clusterfuck of a data bus fixed _stay out the way_." one of the techs snapped, not emerging from the console she was up to the waist in.

"... Right," Harry began, but the technician ran straight over the top of him;

"Hellmaster take it – SARAH! The trunk feed's out, this shitheap console isn't talking to the primary cogitators and I think we've lost number eight lexomat."

"I think the whole fething cogitatorium's out." one of the other techs provided.

"Neg, nothing wrong in the cogitatorium replacing a couple of fried lexomats could not solve but number two bus looks like someone hit it with a mech flamer," a third shouted across from where she'd just emerged from a lift, "We are going to have to rip out the whole trunk line, it has burned back to the primary cogitatorium."

"Screw the conduit, I'll run a patch line straight down the emergency stairwell," Harry said, helping himself to a bundle of cables, "We can do a proper repair job in drydock."

"Is that CRVGS-10148, queaff?" the third tech checked, giving Harry's tangle of cables a highly dubious look.

"What? Oh, right," and Harry dumped the cables in favour of a different roll, "This lot _is_. Here, gimme a hand with this Granger,"

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Hey Ben, you might know," said Neville Longbottom, causing Ben Chaos to look up from the lightsabre components he'd been cleaning.

"Know what mate?"

"What's Harry Johnson got to do with the Backlash Gang?" asked Eiko Kent, who had approached alongside Neville.

"Well sheila that's a bit of a story," Ben said, sitting back, "I know I don't look it but I'm over a century and a half old just by linear time... anyway I drove Lancasterswith 467 Squadron for the Royal Australian Air Force during Grindlewald's War and got shot down over Germany one time, bombing the Dortmund-Ems canal right sheila, we got hit by flak five times, took out all four of my poor bloody bomber's engines and turned my poor bloody tailgunner into... not much left, and it's Danny Backlash and his mates kept me and my mates out the Schutzstaffel's hands."

"I take it that's a big deal?" Doran, who had likewise shown up along with Neville, asked.

"Big deal? Sheila, you got any idea what the bloody Ahnenerbe did to offworlders or Force sensitives the Krauts got their hands on? Eidun flamin' Palpatine was a flamin' Jedi untill he got got by the Ahnenerbe after the Krauts shot his Hurricane out of under him, they drove him clear off his flamin' rocker, instant bloody Force psychosis, that's how bad news those bastards were."

"He's not joking, Grandma had a Kenti expat on her team, right, and he got captured during one of their raids. They managed to rescue him, but... well, by the time they got to him he couldn't do anything but gibber and twitch and beg to die and Grandma ended up, well, giving him a shotgun and some privacy." Neville told the rest of the group.

"Something like that mate, anyway after Dumbledore put flamin' Grindlewald six feet under I tried to keep in touch with the blokes who'd kept my mates alive, and not just because I'd figured this 'Danny' joker was using the Force or because he recognised me soon as he saw me despite the fact I'd never met him in my flamin' life before – but I failed. Then bloody nearly sixty years later I ran into a cobber whom looked just like him in New Taz. I've satisfied myself it's not just a matter of people who look the same since; Harry Johnson, Danny Backlash – same bloke."

"... I thought he was a straight-out mercenary?" Neville asked, completely staggered, "Didn't give a damn, wouldn't get out of bed unless you paid him?"

"That," Ben told him, "Is what Harry wants people to think. Mate, we're talking about the bloke who said making sure my poor bloody tailgunner got a decent burial was the least he could do, dumb bastard actually apologised for not being able to save a bloke who got a Flak 88 shell burst four feet in front of his face, bloody hell mate there was so little left of Jimbo no joke we could've buried him in a shoebox... Harry spends all the flamin' time trying to convince everyone – especially himself – he doesn't care, and all the while he's ripping strips out himself for not being able to help in situations where fuckin' nobody could've done _shit_. Maybe one day he'll start to believe himself when he says he doesn't care, but I doubt it and, hell, I hope not because that'd be the day he'd lose himself... Nev, mate, you've heard his Sith title. He's the Lord of Vengeance. _What do you think he's fighting for?_"

**-/-End Chapter-/-**

AN – Seems like World War 2 is an overarching theme in half of everything I write; in my defence, it is THE period of history that fascinates me the most and I can't help referencing the war whenever the chance comes up.

Besides, as an author WW2 is epic material. It's one of the clearest-cut cases of 'Good Guys' versus 'Bad Guys' in RL history, if not THE clearest-cut case; Bad Guys don't come much badder than the Reich. It's a time - the last time - when men were men, technology was rough and ready, and bombs used HE rather than plutonium; until August of 1945 WW2 didn't have a nuclear 'End This War' switch, and that makes it truly fascinating.

No disrespect to the actual members of No 467 Squadron RAAF is intended; squadron selected due to having been Aussies in the right place and at the right time; hell, quite the opposite, nothin' but respect is intended.

Anyway Ben Chaos, like a lot of traditional-minded New Aussies, thinks of himself as Australian first and foremost; bloody right he joined up mate, he's Australian and a Jedi and his flamin' family down there on Earth needed all the help they could get. It feeds back nicely that, IRL, 467 Squadron had an enviable record during the war - only one Lancaster flew more sorties than 467 Squadron's longest-lived kite. IRL, they were just that damn good. In the Top Dog 'verse, their record is even more impressive; not only were they that damn good, they had a Jedi at the helm of one of their Lancs...

Doghead Out.


End file.
